.- The 1.5 million U.S. members of the Knights of Columbus are urged to “make the crucial difference” in the debate over the Federal Marriage Amendment by calling their senators or showing up at their senator’s local office and voicing their support for the measure.
The Senate will begin debating the amendment July 9; a vote is expected the following week.
“Amending the Constitution is something that we should never take lightly,” Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson said. “But the recent same-sex marriage decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court leaves no alternative. The danger that other state or federal courts will adopt their reasoning and strike down laws protecting traditional marriage is now very great.”
The amendment would declare that “marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.” It provides that “neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.”
The Knights are urged to contact senators at their offices “back home,” rather than on Capitol Hill. “Letters and e-mails may have some impact, but phone calls are more likely to get their attention,” said the instructions to U.S. Knights.
The Knights were also told to contact their own senators only since senators do not pay attention to communications from people living in states they don’t represent.
“As the largest Catholic family organization in the country, the Knights of Columbus regards defense of the traditional family as among its highest priorities,” Anderson said.
At its national convention in August 2003, the Knights adopted a resolution that the organization “will oppose any effort to alter the institution and sacrament of marriage to include unions between persons of the same sex.”
Senators’ contact information is available on the Knights of Columbus Web site: www.kofc.org
