Where do we even start with this?

Last week President Bush threw his support behind an amendment to the U. S. Constitution to screw queer people once and for all out of the civil contract known as marriage.

Reaction was swift and stern. "President Bush fails to understand that our families are more than political red meat that he can throw before his anti-gay base," said Dave Noble, executive director of National Stonewall Democrats. "The President has clearly demonstrated that it is no longer acceptable for our community to merely vote against this man. Each one of us now has the responsibility to actively work to deny him a second term."

Democratic presidential nominee hopeful (you know what we mean) Massachusetts Senator John Kerry went on the record not supporting a federal constitutional amendment—but, oddly, supporting an amendment for Massachusetts’ state constitution.

Only a few days later, on Feb. 28, Minnesota Senator Mark Dayton came out swinging. Addressing 900 attendees at the ninth annual Rainbow Families Conference in Minneapolis, Dayton said, “The last fortress of prejudice and hatred and dehumanization in America has been toward GLBT men and women. I'm not a psychiatrist; I'll leave it to them to explain why homophobia trumps racism, sexism, nationalism, and religious intolerance, but it does. The discrimination, the dehumanization, and the violence against human beings because of their sexual orientation is vicious, ugly, and mean-spirited. And it's immoral and should be illegal.”

It made the front page of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Campaign (www.hrc.org) had been busy orchestrating some of the most brilliant coalition-building in history. They partnered with conservative groups to create an ad campaign that points out the inconsistency in arguing that individual states should not be forced to recognize a same-sex marriage from other states, but via this constitutional amendment, every state would be forced to prohibit them. Conservatives are supposed to favor states’ rights over federal heavy-handedness. (More on this can be found at www.lawfullywedded.com.)

Make your voice heard. Call your Representative and Senators at 1-877-762-8762. Tell them to oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment.