From the FRC daily update service comes some very helpful items to use in your letters, e-mails and phone calls to your respective political reps.
The Family Research Council strongly opposes any legislation that implies that homosexual behavior, cross-dressing, or sex-change operations are equivalent to inborn characteristics like race, or that implies that disapproval of such behaviors constitutes "hate." Those are good enough reasons to oppose the so-called "hate crimes" amendment that was slipped into a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last week. Such laws also punish people for their thoughts in addition to their actions, and this bill would greatly expand federal authority in an area long reserved to the states and local government--namely, criminal law.
What the federal government currently does is collect "hate crime" statistics from the states and apply "sentencing enhancements" when a federal crime is also bias-related. But this bill, for the first time ever, would allow federal prosecution of any "hate" crime--including ones already prosecuted in state court. FRC continues to urge the Republican Congress to strip this affirmation of homosexuality, criminalization of thoughts, and massive federal power grab from the final bill.
By the way, clicking on the title of this post will take you to an excellent analysis of the push to use "hate crimes" legislation to promote a homosexual agenda. It is written by Leah Farish for FRC.