The Christian Civic League of Maine has abandoned its campaign to repeal the state's gay-rights law and eliminate other safeguards for gays and lesbians.

In an e-mail to supporters and volunteers, Michael Hein, the league's administrator, announced this morning that the league had pulled the plug because it has "neither enough funds nor enough volunteer support to continue the effort."

The league would have had to submit more than 55,000 signatures by next January to place its proposal on the statewide ballot in November 2009, but Michael Heath, the organization's executive director, estimates that the group has collected only about 5,000 of the 15,000 signatures it hoped to have by now.

In addition to repealing a state law that bars discrimination based on sexual orientation, the referendum would have barred unmarried couples from adopting children, dropped funding for state civil-rights teams and prohibited the state from recognizing same-sex marriages or civil unions.