I do

Dear marriage supporter,

In this email:

•A great start

•Next steps

•What you can do

A great start

You are one of over 350,000 people who have signed our national petition for marriage so far. That makes it the biggest petition since the general election. It shows that the Government has badly misjudged the mood of the nation, and that you stand together with hundreds of thousands of others in supporting marriage. Well done to everyone who made this happen.

We have stolen a march and started a national debate in the media about redefining marriage. Previously, this debate has been restricted to the elites - to special interest groups, politicians and party advisers. Nobody asked the public what they thought. No major party put it in a manifesto. It wasn't part of the Programme for Government.

But we have given the great British public a voice, and hundreds of thousands of you have said loud and clear: we don't want marriage to be redefined. We have run a professional, disciplined and measured campaign. We have well and truly planted our flag for marriage.

Next steps

It's a great start, but we are not resting on our laurels. We are confident that public opinion is moving our way. We will be taking further steps to progress the campaign.

The Government has launched its consultation. We will analyse the consultation documents, and advise you on the best way to engage with it. Please stay tuned for that. In the meantime, there are things you can be doing to really help the campaign.

What you can do

1. Grow the petition. Here are some practical ideas:

•Go through your email contacts. Select friends who you think would sign the petition. Email every single one with this link: http://www.c4m.org.uk/ and ask them to sign it.

•If you are on Facebook or Twitter, share the petition with your friends and urge them to sign. Again, post links to http://www.c4m.org.uk/.

•Not everyone is on the internet, so download a petition form to print out. Ask your offline friends to sign the paper petition form, then send it in to us using the address on the form.

•Some marriage supporters have been mentioning the paper petition to their friends at work, you could also do that.

•Others have been taking the paper petition form door-to-door down their street, and the response has been very positive. Give it a try.

2. Stay informed. Here's how:

•Follow the Coalition for Marriage Blog. We post short, regular snippets about the campaign. Quite often you'll see things here that you may have missed elsewhere. Please share what you read with your friends.

•Follow the News page on our website. On that page we post links to what the media are saying about the marriage issue. It's an excellent way of keeping yourself up-to-date with the latest developments.

•If you use social media, please follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

•Please read our emails. You care about marriage. We care about marriage. So let's keep in touch. We can't stop the redefinition of marriage without you. Together we can make a difference.

Yours sincerely,

Colin Hart
Campaign Director
Coalition for Marriage