We've made it easy for you by giving you all the talking points you need to assemble a compelling letter - and you can send it to your local paper with just a few clicks of your mouse.
You have heard, no doubt, the liberal attacks against the Marriage Protection Amendment - that it will write bias and discrimination into the U.S. Constitution. That lie has been repeated loudly, and often, in the days since President Bush came out in favor of such an amendment, and there's only one way to prevent your friends and neighbors from believing this lie.
You have to tell them the truth.
Few ways of doing that are more effective than a compelling letter to the editor. That's why we've put together some key points that refute the liberals' argument, which we hope you will take a few moments to assemble into a letter to your local newspaper.
Here's how it works:
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Look over the four sections below. From each section, select one paragraph and copy it into a text document. No matter which ones you choose, the result will be a finished letter of no more than 225 words.
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Print and sign your letter, making sure you include your name, full address and phone number. You can then mail it to your local newspaper. For contact information for your local newspaper, visit the Media section of AFA's Legislative Action Center and type your ZIP code into the "Local Media" box.
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You can e-mail your letter through the Legislative Action Center, via the link you will find on the contact information page for your local newspaper.
Here, then, are the sections from which you can assemble your letter.
Opening paragraph (choose one)
President Bush and other conservatives have been accused in recent weeks of seeking to "put bias in the Constitution" by endorsing an amendment that would define marriage as solely the union of one man and one woman. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Liberals the likes of Ted Kennedy and The New York Times editorial board have crowed quite a bit in recent weeks that the Marriage Protection Amendment would "put bias in the Constitution" by declaring marriage to be exclusively the union of one man and one woman. It is a specious, deceptive argument.
You've probably heard in the past few weeks the charge that the Marriage Protection Amendment, which would define marriage in the U.S. Constitution as the union of one man and one woman, would write discrimination into our country's founding document. Don't believe it for a second.
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Second paragraph (choose one)
Gay marriage has never been a constitutional right in America -- or any other civilized nation. Those who support the amendment aren't trying to deprive homosexuals of any of the legal protections they currently enjoy; instead, they are trying to prevent runaway courts from creating out of thin air new "rights" that would prove detrimental to society.
The truth is, the Constitution is going to be altered one way or the other. Either that change will come from unelected, unaccountable judges intent on creating a right of homosexual couples to marry when the Constitution grants no such right; or it will come from the American people through this amendment to preserve marriage as it has served society for millennia.
It is not homosexuals, but marriage, that is under attack. Left unchecked, rogue judges intent on finding new rights in the Constitution will succeed, someday soon, in extending marriage benefits to gays. Supporters of a marriage-protection amendment aren't out to discriminate against anyone; they simply want to preserve the institution of marriage as it has served society for centuries.
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Third paragraph (choose one)
Yelling "discrimination" is not the only strategy liberals have unleashed to defeat this amendment, though. They also have argued that gay marriage is a civil rights issue akin to the African-American struggle for equality. No less a civil rights icon than Jesse Jackson has denounced that claim, noting that "gays were never called three-fifths human in the Constitution."
Amendment opponents have also turned to an emotional argument in asking, "How does one couple's gay marriage threaten anyone's heterosexual marriage?" This question misses the point: The goal of gay activists isn't the individual relationship of any two people, despite such statements. It is the revision of national policy to say that gender, especially in child-rearing, is inconsequential, even though research indicates children do best when raised by a married mother and father.
Amendment supporters have also been disparaged as "bigots." How can that be, when the language being proposed is identical to the language of the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by 427 members of Congress? Are they -- and former President Clinton, who signed the bill into law -- bigots, too?
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Concluding paragraph (choose one)
These and other distortions of the truth must be resisted, because marriage and the benefits it brings must be protected.
Don't fall for these manipulative arguments. Stand firm for the sanctity of marriage.
This aggressive campaign to undermine marriage as it's always been known can be defeated -- but only if we all stand up to support the Marriage Protection Amendment.
Reprinted from Focus on the Family CitizenLink website.
