Subject: *M*: Call Congress NOW on Same-sex Marriage
From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 19:51:10 -0400

Indiana Freedom To Marry Coalition
ACTION ALERT
Thursday, 7/11/96

Experts from the Human Rights Campaign say the US House of Representatives as
a whole will be debating HR 3396, known as DOMA--Defense of Marriage Act
TONIGHT with a probable vote either at the end of tonight's debate or first
thing tomorrow morning. 

ACTION:  Call your Representative NOW to say "Vote NO on HR 3396".   It does
not matter how late you call.  If the office answers, they're still debating
and your call will count.  Hoosiers calling Rep. Jacobs or Visclosky should
call Marla Stevens of LGBT Fairness at (317) 635-2712 to report the results
of the contacts.

SPECIAL NOTE FOR INDIANAPOLIS AREA HOOSIERS:
1)  It is urgent that Rep. Andrew Jacobs (D-Indianapolis) be called at his
Capitol office at (202) 225-4011.  He has yet to commit one way or another on
how he will vote on final passage of DOMA.
2)  His vote may be the only one we get on our side from the Indiana
delegation.  His vote against the bill will help as we negotiate with Julia
Carson, the Democrat contender for his seat, for her help on same-sex
marriage in the years to come.
3)  Leave the message to "VOTE NO ON HR 3396" with the receptionist for Rep.
Jacobs.
4)  Ask also to speak to Tricia or David Wildes about the bill.  Try to find
out what Rep. Jacobs' position is and why.
5)  Impress on Jacobs' office that it would be inconsistent to vote for
District of Columbia domestic partners' rights to visit loved ones in the
hospital but vote against the rights of similarly situated Hoosiers.  Let
them know that a YES vote would continue to allow immigration officials to
forcibly part same-sex couples in committed relationships when one was a U.S.
citizen and the other was not.  Most of all, let them know how this bill
affects you personally.

SPECIAL NOTE FOR NORTHWEST INDIANA RESIDENTS:  It is also critical that Rep.
Visclosky get calls at (202) 225-2461.  The religious right has targetted his
office and they've gotten mostly anti-same-sex-marriage calls.  He had not
definitely committed to vote for the bill, though, and we still have a
chance.

MORE INDIANA INFORMATION:  All the rest of the Indiana delegation has decided
to vote with the religious right.  McIntosh, Souder, Buyer, Burton, and
Hostettler were all early co-sponsors of HR 3396.  Burton's letters to
constituents have been horribly demeaning, telling gay Hoosier couples (and
their children) that they aren't families because they aren't married and
that he opposes their marriages.  Hamilton's aide reports that he will be
voting for the bill because he is personally opposed to same-sex marriage.
 Roemer seems afraid not to vote for the bill because he's facing a tough
election battle against a right-wing opponent in a conservative district.
 Myers aides won't say what his personal opinions are but are sure he will
vote for the bill.  All of them try to deny that they're behaving as if their
gay constituents aren't fully human while acknowledging that marriage is a
fundamental right of adult humans.  They don't like seeing themselves as
bigots and recoil from it.  If you are one of their constituents, call them
and politely point out their bigotry and your disgust with it.

GENERAL BACKGROUND ON DOMA:
DOMA basically does two things:
1) It says that states may refuse to recognize same-sex marriages legally
performed in other states and 
2) It says that the government of the United States will not recognize legal
same-sex marriages for purposes of federal law, thus denying legally married
same-sex couples rights and responsibilities included in some 6000 federal
statutes and regulations.

A vote was held earlier today on the rule for HR 3396 (the rule is the
process they will use to debate the bill tonight).  The vote, HR 474 passed
by a vote of 290-133.  We did better than we'd hoped, as the lobbyists at HRC
had been worried we'd get less than a hundred votes to defeat the rule.  If
we can hold the 133 votes or even pick up a few more, it may help slow things
down in the Senate, give courage to some of those on the fence but leaning to
our side, and make our attempts to kill it with procedural roadblocks like
attaching ENDA (the Les-gay-bi employment rights bill) to DOMA.

DOMA was also heard in committee in the Senate today.  It was a reasonably
good hearing, under the circumstances, with only committee chair Orrin Hatch
showing up to represent the Republicans.  Our Democrat supporters were well
represented by folks like Ted Kennedy (whose tough questions exposed the
mean-spiritedness and double standards of arch-homophobe Gary Bauer), Paul
Simon of Illinois, and even Diane Feinstein (who gave the far-right in
Congress a stern lecture for wasting their valuable time with junk
legislation when there were critically important bills like minimum wage that
were languishing.)

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