If you live outside Indy, this page gives you local contact info for Bayh, and this page for Lugar.

I spoke to Senator Evan Bayh in person Saturday night at the J-J Dinner and thanked him for his sponsorship of the Hate Crimes Act. He smiled graciously and stated he was honored to do so. He won't waver...

The "problem Senator" for Hoosiers is Dick Lugar. He is possibly winnable on this issue. By all means concentrate your lobbying and persuasion efforts on Republican Richard Lugar!

"We may have failed Representatives Ellsworth and Donnelly by not garnering enough support for them to vote with us; let's not make that same mistake again!"

So now its WE failed Rep. Ellsworth and Donnelly? May I respectfully suggest (okay, maybe not so much) that it was Ellsworth and Donnelly who failed US all ...

Bil:

You are the man, as always!!

As the Regional Field Director for the Human Rights Campaign for the Midwest, I wanted to emphasize to readers that it is important to make sure everyone's friends, neighbors, partners, family, supporters, etc. also contact Indiana's two Senators. Please take a moment to forward Bil's post around and encourage fellow Hoosiers who stand for equality to make their voices heard.

You can go to the Human Rights Campaign website at www.hrc.org/hatecrimes to send an email directly to your Senators. Additionally, if any readers of bilerico.com are interested in becoming more involved in this effort to pass meaningful hate crimes legislation I would encourage you to email me directly at stuart.rosenberg@hrc.org.

Don't let the right-wing extremists be the only voices heard in Washington. With your help, we can make sure that Senator Bayh and Senator Lugar hear loud and clear that hate will not be tolerated in Indiana!

I see your point, Kay, and I actually think we're both right on this one...

While they failed us by not voting the way we wanted them to, we failed the two Reps by not speaking our truths to them. I've heard the exact number of pro vs con contacts, and Rep Donnelly was extremely generous when he called it 5 to 1. And that's AFTER weeding out all the e-mails from out of the district! You have to admit, it's hard to support something when it seems like most of your constituents don't...

We can't let that happen in the Senate. Let's do everything we can to make sure that the Senators don't have the same excuse to fail us!

I fully trust that Ellsworth and Donnelly are well aware of our "truths." For them to say otherwise or for us to believe otherwise is ... best left unsaid here.

Playing the numbers game (who does the most contacts) is a futile exercise because we are the minority! Constantly trying to compete is playing into the hands of the religious right.

Besides, it is demoralizing to many (being told it's their fault), draining on personal energy, and (it seems) a huge wasting of community resources.

I and some of my community up here will be meeting with Congressman Donnelly on Saturday May 19th. If you would like to write a letter to him, email it to me as a Word attachment and I will print it and personally hand it to him. I would love to walk into this meeting with lots of letters! Email me at beck_robin@sbcglobal.net

We need to speak up. There are plenty of us. Let's not give them an excuse to vote against us again.

"kay" said:

Besides, it is demoralizing to many (being told it's their fault), draining on personal energy, and (it seems) a huge wasting of community resources.

Generally speaking, politics is [potentially] demoralizing. Politics is invariably draining on personal energy. Politics is [often] a huge [apparent] wasting of community resources.

Welcome to the world of politics, kay!

Now, let's get off our whining rear ends and contact our two Hoosier senators. That is the way politics works, whether you like it or not. Do you want to win, or don't you?

(P.S. The fact that we are the minority is all the more reason why a higher percentage of us must contact our senators and congresspersons.)

Lopp, I put on my big girl panties decades ago; I'll suggest you do the same.

Good for you, kay! ... Then act like it!

Huh, and just when I thought it couldn't get anymore daftly boring ... go figure.

Exactly. Boring by design. If you are bored, kay, then the other Bilerico readers must be bored to tears with both of us. I have no interest in pursuing a pointless online pissing match.

Now, contact Senators Bayh and Lugar and urge them to vote YES on the Matthew Shephard Act (as I did yesterday while in downtown Indy) ... and let's drop this crap.

P.S. At both Senator Bayh's office and Senator Lugar's, I was told that a visit to the office counts no heavier in the constituency stats than a call or an email. So unless you enjoy searching for parking spaces downtown and pressing the buttons in a skyscraper elevator, just make a call or send an email.

Don't make me separate you two!

I'm here to tell you, Alan, that they're feeding you crap. Very few constituents actually show up at the office, so when someone does it's taken much more seriously. You took time out of someone's day to stand there face-to-face and talk about hate crimes. That message will get delivered if enough of us show up and do it.

Well, Bil, maybe I didn't do it right?

In both cases, I only dealt with the receptionist at the front desk, who, in both cases, obviously translated my input and personal info into an email which, they assured me, would "go directly to the Senator's office in Washington D.C."

Should I have insisted on speaking with someone other than the receptionist, maybe a staff assistant of some sort? The Indy office is, of course, a field office, and I believe the legislative aides do work in D.C. ... Right?

All I'm saying is that you know that receptionist sent an e-mail that said "This guy came into the office to register his opinion." You took extra time. Just like handwritten, stamped and snail mailed letters mean more than e-mails because they take longer, office visits rank right up there too. :)