Centuries ago, Greece and the people of Troy were at war. The war had been going on for 10 years, and there were no signs that it would end. The Greek soldiers’ desire to capture Troy was as intense as their longing to return home, but until the Greek leader Ulysses and his warriors penetrated the walls of the city and vanquished their enemy, the long siege would continue.

The Greeks decided to trick their foes into believing that they had given up. They built a wooden horse, and then led the people of Troy to believe that the Greek soldiers had abandoned their tents outside the city. Hardly believing what they perceived as their good fortune, the people of Troy accepted the wooden horse as a symbol of defeating the Greeks, and wheeled it into their walled city.

Unknown to the Trojans, Ulysses and about 50 other Greek warriors were hiding in the belly of the wooden horse. In the stealth of night, they climbed out of the horse, and brought thousands of other Greek soldiers out of hiding and into the walled city. Caught by surprise, thousands of Trojan men, women and children were killed by the Greeks. The Greeks’ ploy of deceit allowed them to defeat the Trojans and capture Troy.

Could a Trojan horse ruse succeed in modern times?

Facing a critical deadline, proponents of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and domestic partnerships in California recently conceded defeat in their quest to qualify a proposed amendment for the June 2006 ballot. In a Dec. 21 report on the initiative efforts published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Andrew Pugno, the former chief of staff for the late state Sen. Pete Knight, who led the fight to pass Proposition 22 in 2000, said that the deadline to submit signatures would not be met and flatly predicted “there will not be a measure on the ballot in the coming year.”

The proposed amendments that have been circulating in California in recent months would destroy the dream of marriage equality in California and would strip away all of the legal protections domestic partners currently enjoy. Our community desperately wants the proposed amendments to fail. And when the Dec. 27, 2005, deadline arrived and passed without signatures being submitted to the Secretary of State, it was a welcome sign for our community and for the cause of equality.

Taking Pugno’s comments at face value, our enemies would have us believe that they have abandoned their attacks on our rights, at least for the time being.

Don’t buy it.

No political cause or candidate ever opens its playbook to the public or to the opposition, or calls the press to announce its failures. And while no anti-equality amendment will land on the June 2006 ballot, close to four months remain before the deadline for signatures for measures seeking to qualify for the November 2006 ballot. That’s more than ample time for gathering 598,105 valid signatures, especially if resources from out of state are pumped into the effort.

Among the 31 initiatives currently in circulation in California, 12 are initiatives that seek to block GLBT access to marriage equality and restrict domestic partnerships in the state. That means that more than one in three of all initiatives circulating in California are being circulated by people who are opposed to our claim to fairness and equality. That reality should alarm you and move you to get engaged in protecting your rights, and to enlist the support of your friends in the cause as well.

November 2006 remains well within our opponents’ reach for a constitutional attack on our rights. To stay informed, monitor the activity of the anti-equality initiatives at www.ss.ca.gov/elections. And beware of Trojan horses.