WEST HOLLYWOOD – Cleve Jones extended his microphone in the upscale bar as though handing a baton to the next generation.

The following day, the crowd of gay activists – most of them white – would be heading into boot camp.

But for now, the former top lieutenant to slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk was telling them what he wanted them to hear – that if they go to the ballot box to end California's same-sex marriage ban, they have to do a better job reaching out to minorities and others outside their circles.

"If you think you're going to win your rights by clicking a mouse, putting on a black tie and going to fancy parties and fundraisers, you are wrong," Jones said. "We win this by going door to door and saying, 'I am a gay man, I am a gay man, I'm a lesbian, (and) if you don't vote for this, it will hurt me.' "

Stung by the victory of Proposition 8, gay rights activists are taking a lesson from the Obama campaign: community-organizing boot camps. And after avoiding the use of same-sex couples in campaign commercials, they are recasting their message to emphasize personal narratives.

Publicly, at least, the measure's opponents are optimistic they'll prevail in the court challenge led by Equality California that's now before the California Supreme Court. But the boot camps – called Camp Courage – are designed to lay the groundwork for a ballot fight as early as 2010 to overturn the marriage ban.

Modeled after Camp Obama, which is credited with training the thousands of volunteers who helped President Barack Obama win the White House, the outreach effort is the brainchild of former money manager Rick Jacobs. The first Camp Courage, held here last week, attracted more than 200 participants.

"Camp Courage is about self-empowerment," Jacobs said. "It's about people needing to tell their own story – and what's so powerful about their story – so they can go out convince people that same-sex marriage is OK."

Trainers at the daylong session encouraged volunteers to bare their emotions and use a personal story – dubbed the "story of self" – to win voters' hearts.

The night before, at the upscale bar, Jones laid down a template and challenged volunteers to venture beyond the comfort of their communities.

"Ordinary people, crossing those boundaries, building those bridges … that is what Harvey Milk did," said Jones, 54, who was a consultant for the Oscar-nominated film based on Milk's life. "It takes that kind of courage."

Cloning Camp Obama

The boot camps are an outgrowth of the Courage Campaign, an online hub for liberal Californians, which Jacobs founded after chairing Howard Dean's 2003 presidential campaign in the state.

Since then, the Courage Campaign has rallied support for many Democratic causes. Now the group, which claims 300,000 grass-roots and so-called "netroots" members, is taking a lead role in the fight to repeal Proposition 8.

Opponents of the measure were stunned by exit polls showing that a majority of African Americans and Latinos, after voting for Obama, also voted for the same-sex marriage ban.

Using the same training techniques as Camp Obama, Camp Courage is designed to channel the energy of people who protested the measure's passage into a grass-roots effort to win voters over.

The inaugural boot camp, held at the West Hollywood Park Auditorium, was underwritten by two gay doctors and co-sponsored by SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West, the California Nurses Association and MoveOn.org.

Trainees were taught how to condense their stories into two-minute pitches. They were also schooled on the finer points of how to record responses while canvassing door to door or working phone banks.

These techniques were honed during the Obama campaign in California, where organizers held more than two dozen training sessions, even in conservative rural areas of the state. The outreach, which recruited so many volunteers that many were sent to battleground states, is something Camp Courage wants to replicate.

Call Aurelio Rojas, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5545.