From: dragodes@ix.netcom.com (DRAGO design) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 09:36:01 -0700 Subject: *M*: Anti-DOMA letter and information I updated the anti DOMA letter to include the ENDA issue and simplified the other info a little to make it more likely to get people into action. Just e-mail, fax, forward this to any one who might support our cause. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ---------- URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT Dear ____________________, We would like to ask for your support in this issue. A lot may depend on it for us personally. The information below is pretty self-explanatory. They put DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) on a fast track in Congress and are trying to push it through before the end of the month. If the vote took place now, it would pass with an overwhelming majority of votes. If we can help it, this must not happen! Please do what you can directly and spread the word to others to do the same. Thank you very much for your support. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BACKGROUND INFO AND INSTRUCTIONS We had really put our hopes on the possibility of same-gender marriage becoming legal, but now, especially on a Federal level, this looks more and more doubtful. *** People can help by writing letters *OPPOSING* DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) to President Clinton, both Senators (in California Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer), and the Representative. You can either write your own letter or use the sample letter enclosed. ***If you use the sample letter, please fill up the blank space with additional arguments of your own or from the SAMPLE ARGUMENTS list below.*** When you're finished, send all the letters (in one envelope) to the same address: Human Rights Campaign Att'n: Nancy Buermeyer 1101 - 14th Street NW, Suite 200 Washington, DC 20005 HRC will count the letters (important in the lobbying battle) and deliver them to Capitol Hill for you. *** - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SAMPLE ARGUMENTS use sentences from here or let these ideas inspire your own! CIVIL RIGHTS ARGUMENTS This is probably the premiere Civil Rights issue of the 1990s, and is easily the most important Civil Rights issue in American history for lesbians and gays. This issue is historic, and we will not let it go away until we have equal rights. Would you like to be counted in the future among the George Wallaces of the 1990s or among the Martin Luther Kings? Like Rosa Parks 40 years ago, lesbians and gays are no longer willing to sit on the back of the bus! We will not give up or be silent until we can legally form families like all other Americans. Like all Civil Rights issues, this requires leadership and vision on the part of our elected officials, not spineless "politics as usual." I fully expect you to use your leadership skills and vision to defeat this bill. Convicted murderers and sociopathic criminals are guaranteed the right to marry by decisions like Turner v. Safley (US Supreme Court, 1987), that establish marriage as one of everyone's most fundamental rights. How can any sane person deny this right to loving, law-abiding same-gender couples while conceding it to criminals in prison? Civil Rights cannot depend on opinion polls. If we had waited for public opinion to approve of interracial marriages, these would have been illegal until the 1980s. The government cannot discriminate arbitrarily against any person or group without a compelling and logical reason. A "tradition" of discrimination-as exists in this country against same-gender couples, is not a reason to continue that discrimination. Lesbians and gays pay equal taxes and deserve equal rights! This bill is like a cross burning on the lawn of lesbian and gay Americans. It reminds them to "keep in their place" and that there are still "lynch mobs" of gay bashers to keep them in the closet. FAMILY ARGUMENTS "Traditional families" could not possibly be threatened by healthy, loving same-gender couples with full legal rights. Lesbian couples are on average less promiscuous and more long-lasting than straight couples. Lesbian and gay citizens are uniquely denied the right to live our family life responsibly. We can only enjoy the responsibilities and benefits of civil marriage if we marry someone we DO NOT love and to whom we ARE NOT united by bonds of attraction. We can enjoy certain legal protections if we enter into a hopeless and unstable marriage with a member of the opposite sex, but are denied these protections if we form a stable, caring family with the person we love. This is madness and cannot possibly serve any state interest. If an American citizen falls in love with an opposite-gender foreigner, they can get married, and the foreigner is allowed to stay in the country. A same-gender couple in the same situation would not be able to get married, and essentially they would be divorced by government when the foreigner is forced to leave. Forced divorces are reminiscent of Nazi Germany. The arguments used 30 years ago against interracial marriage are virtually the same as those used today by religious-political extremists against same-gender marriage. Can't we learn from history? Marriage is for stable relationships, not for procreation. If this weren't true, childless marriages like Bob Dole's and Newt Gingrich's would be invalid! Tens of thousands of children are being raised by same-gender couples, and more will be in the future. How is it fair to deny these kids the stability and benefits provided by having married parents: health care coverage, clear-cut custody arrangements, etc.? All kids need this stability in their lives. It is in the public interest to see that ALL adults, not just children, are involved in caring, permanent family relationships. When people marry, they legally take responsibility for each other and provide a "PRIVATE safety net" to each other in case of bad times, so they do not have to rely on the PUBLIC safety net. This is why infertile couples and couples who do not want children are given marriage licenses. If you are really interested in defending marriage and family, I suggest that you make it mandatory that all couples receive counseling before they are granted permission to get married or to be divorced. Also you should require that each couple take parenting courses before being allowed to have children. CONSTITUTIONAL / POLITICAL ARGUMENTS The so-called "Defense of Marriage Act" is blatantly unconstitutional. Marriage is an issue that has always been decided by the states and is currently being resolved by the states. The federal government has no business intruding here. With a legislative calendar as crowded as Congress now has, with the real business of running the country at hand, this bill stands out in its uselessness, regulating something, same-gender marriage, that isn't likely even to exist for several years. This bill is obviously a desperate political ploy by the GOP to find an attention-grabbing issue for this November. It only distracts from the real work the Congress has to do. This is a state, not a federal issue. The sponsors of this bill in Congress are hypocrites. While claiming to defend the "traditional family," many are on their second (Bob Dole) and third (Bob Barr) marriages, many without children. Do Congresspeople really want their families publicly held to the same strict standards they claim lesbians and gays can't meet? - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTACT INFO [Remember, use this IN ADDITION to sending in the letters, if you can do more IT'S THE LETTERS THAT ARE CRITICAL!] Sen. Barbara Boxer WASHINGTON: E-mail: senator@boxer.senate.gov Phone: (202) 224-3553 Fax: (202) 228-1338 SAN FRANCISCO Phone 415 403 0100 Public fax 415 956 6701 LOS ANGELES Phone 310 414 5700 Public fax 310 414 0980 SAN DIEGO Phone 619 239 3885 Public fax 619 239 5719 FRESNO Phone 209 497 5109 Sen. Dianne Feinstein WASHINGTON: E-mail: senator@feinstein.senate.gov Phone: 202 224-3841 Fax: 202 228-3954 SAN FRANCISCO Phone 415 536-6868 LOS ANGELES Phone 310 914-7300 SAN DIEGO Phone 619 231-9712 FRESNO Phone 209 485-7430 President Bill Clinton Phone: (202) 456-1111 Fax: 202 456-2883 or 202 456-2461 E-mail: president@whitehouse.gov Other Senators: Phone: 800 962-3524 (Christian Coalition pays, ***but remember, they also get sent your phone number in the process, to telemarket you or whatever some day***)or 202 225-3121 And for as long as it lasts, you can call any Congressperson through the Congressional Switchboard, and the Christian Coalition will foot the bill (***but remember, they also get sent your phone number in the process, to telemarket you or whatever some day***) -- just call 800 962-3524. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SAMPLE LETTER - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ______________________________ ______________________________ ______________________________ ________________________, 1996 To: __________________________ Washington, DC Dear ______________________ I am writing you to ask you to forcefully OPPOSE the misnamed "Defense of Marriage Act." This legislation, co-written by religious-political extremist Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition, is an obvious election-year ploy to score political points by scapegoating a minority group. It is an unprecedented intrusion by the federal bureaucracy into defining marriage, which since the founding of our republic has been regulated by the states, and makes a mockery of the idea of limited government. If you see that DOMA cannot be stopped could you at least advocate that the ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act) would be attached to it. This may well decrease the chance that DOMA would pass, and DOMA, in its current form should never be allowed to pass. Please let me know what action you intend to take regarding this legislation. I and numerous others will remember for MANY YEARS the quality and direction of leadership you show on this fundamental civil rights issue. Sincerely, _____________________ JBWiley at DRAGO design: Mac consulting, design & production, training and other FUN stuff! 510-204-9612 ****************************************************************************** * To subscribe to MARRIAGE, send mail to: majordomo@abacus.oxy.edu * * In the mail message, enter ONLY the words: subscribe marriage * * To unsubscribe to MARRIAGE, send mail to: majordomo@abacus.oxy.edu * * In the mail message, enter ONLY the words: unsubscribe marriage * * Words in the Subject: line are NOT processed! * ******************************************************************************