The Colorado-based Focus on the Family began calling people Monday. With an automated phone system, it asks whether people support or oppose a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would nullify a court decision that ordered the state to pay such benefits.

If they say they oppose the amendment, the call is ended. Those who say they support it are directed to call six state senators, including the Senate majority leader, that the group has identified as potentially obstructing the measure, said Peter Brandt, Focus on the Family's director of government and public policy.

"We're not singling out Alaska," he said. "We're interested in these matters no matter where they take place."

The group says it wants to preserve what it considers to be traditional values and the institution of the family. It intends to contact thousands of Alaskans through the end of this week as part of its national effort to lobby against recognizing same-sex couples as spouses.

Alaska's Constitution bans gay marriage. Voters in 1998 overwhelmingly approved an amendment that says marriage can only be between one man and one woman.

Last October, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that denying gay couples the same public employee benefits as married couples - including life and health insurance as well as retirement and death benefits - violates the Alaska Constitution's equal-protection clause.

Legislators are considering a constitutional amendment that would effectively undo that ruling by saying that a marriage between a man and a woman is the only union "to which the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities or effects of marriage shall be extended or assigned."

Rep. John Coghill Jr., R-North Pole, is sponsoring a resolution in the House. A similar measure was introduced by the Senate Judiciary Committee with no lawmaker's name listed as its sponsor. The Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to take up the matter Thursday.

Meanwhile, Coghill said he expects the first hearing on his resolution, HJR 32, in the House Judiciary Committee next week.

A resolution to amend the constitution must be approved by two-thirds of the Legislature and by voters in a general election.

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Information from: Anchorage Daily News, http://www.adn.com