You can find your senators' addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses here at the Senate website.

A phone call or a snail mail letter used to have more impact than an e-mail, and certainly more than a form e-mail. But, what with all the anthrax scares, I don't know if snail mail would arrive at your senator's office within two weeks, so I suggest you at least send the e-mail.

Here is the text that the Human Rights Campaign suggests in their form e-mail:

Subject: Oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment

Dear Senator [FILL IN NAME]

As your constituent, I urge you to oppose any amendment that would write discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans into the Constitution.

To use the Constitution to discriminate against any group of people is shameful. It is neither compassionate nor conservative. It is a radical position that would insert discrimination into the document that has guaranteed and expanded liberty and equality for over 200 years.

The U.S. Constitution should not be amended to limit the rights of a group of people. Further, the power to regulate marriage and the granting of civil marriage licenses is a power that has historically been reserved to the states. A constitutional amendment to prohibit governmental recognition of same-sex relationships would take this power away from states.

The amendment would do much more than define marriage. Leading legal scholars agree that the amendment could forever invalidate civil unions or other legal protections for same-sex couples -- such as the right to visit a partner in the hospital or to receive partner health benefits -- even if state legislatures passed them and voters approved them.

The rights and responsibilities of marriage, other forms of relationship recognition like domestic partnerships and civil unions, and basic civil rights protections are essential components that make all families, including families headed by same-sex couples, safer and more secure. Marriage licenses, which are granted by the state, and religious marriage, are two separate things. Religious institutions will never be forced to bless relationships with which they disagree, just as today religious institutions can refuse to marry couples of different faiths or individuals who have been divorced.

Please oppose any attempt to build discrimination into the very document that should protect everyone and please oppose any other legislation designed to prohibit civil, secular recognition of same-sex relationships. I look forward to hearing from you on this extremely important issue.

Sincerely,

[YOUR NAME]

Remember that in writing to your elected representatives, you must not use vituperative, inflammatory or threatening language. That does nothing but get you in trouble and label you as a kook.

I would also suggest that you remind your Republican senators that Republicans are supposed to believe in LESS government intrusion into people's personal lives.

Once you have contacted your senators, please ask your friends to do likewise. I think it would be wonderful for this horrible amendment proposition not to make it out of the Senate.

Even if you or your friends do not believe that gay people are entitled to the rights and priviledges of marriage, please remember that the Defense of Marriage Act already prevents gays and lesbians in the United States from receiving any federal recognition or benefits of marriage or civil unions.

Without the amendment, we might or might not gain the right to federally recognized same-sex marriage one day, maybe in my lifetime. Perhaps a case will come up through the judicial system and the Supreme Court will rule that not recognizing same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Or maybe our elected officials will vote to repeal DOMA and recognize same sex marriage. But I kind of doubt it. But if there is a Constitutional amendment, those legal avenues to social change, slow as they may be, are completely walled off until the amendment is repealed, which I believe can only be accomplished with another Constitutional amendment.

You may think that your participation in this issue won't make a difference, but let me assure you that if straight folks who oppose this amendment don't speak up, too, it WILL pass. Conservative religious groups are organized like a well-oiled machine. They are writing to their elected officials. They are prepared to bus people to the polls in mass numbers.

Even though marriage is a civil institution, the religious right believes that marriage belongs to the righteous and the heterosexual only. Ironically, religious gay people can be married in and have their commitment recognized by many churches in many faiths.

This is one of those times when you need to do something. For about 95 percent of the population, the passage or failure of the Federal Marriage Amendment will not make one iota of difference in their lives. But for the gay people who would like to pursue the right to get married in our own country one day and the people closest to us, it makes a big damn difference.

So please, contact your senators. And if the amendment passes the senate, contact your representatives. And if it makes it to the ballot in November, please, please vote.

Thank you very much.
Badsnake

Moving on - 12:11 p.m. , 2007-08-14

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Holy shit! - 2:24 p.m. , 2006-01-11

Stuffing recipe - 6:17 p.m. , 2005-12-13

Good Life Update - 10:22 a.m. , 2005-11-11