If you live in Oregon and oppose same-sex marriage, gay-rights supporters will be trying to change your mind -- and ultimately reverse a state ban on gay marriage -- with a three-week advertising campaign.

, the state's largest gay-rights group, last week began airing 30-second ads on various cable television stations covering Ashland, Cottage Grove, Florence, Eugene, Corvallis, Albany and Coos, Clatsop and Washington counties. The ads are expected to cost several hundred thousand dollars and reach about 300,000 people.

In addition, the group is mailing 50,000 brochures to households within those areas that explain why gay and lesbian couples want to marry.

"Our hope is to reach many more people with the message and continue to inspire those one-on-one conversations that we feel are critical to building understanding and support for the freedom to marry," said Jeana Frazzini, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon.

The ad campaign is part of the group's larger sustained effort, now in its second year, to persuade more Oregonians to support making gay marriage legal, as it is now in five states and the District of Columbia. The group has been sending staff and supporters to meet with churches and civic groups and to knock on people's doors.

Basic Rights has said it will try as early as 2012 to put an initiative on the ballot that would ask Oregon voters to lift the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage that they approved by passing Measure 36 in 2004.

But for now, activists want to foster a conversation with Oregonians outside the heat of a campaign, Frazzini said.

"The goal is to convey that marriage matters," she said. "Gay and lesbian couples want to be able to join in civil marriage and make lifetime commitments to the persons they love."

Recent

show a slim majority of Americans, between 51 and 54 percent, oppose gay marriage compared with 59 to 76 percent six years ago when Oregon banned it.

In 2007, the Legislature approved a domestic partnership law that gives same-sex couples most of the state benefits and responsibilities of marriage. But many gay couples argue that the legal partnerships still deny them federal recognition and the full social status of marriage.

Basic Rights' advertising campaign includes a 31-second video that opens with soft guitar music and the faces of Roger and Jeannie Woehl. "We've been married for 27 years," says Roger.

The scene shifts to Gina Diaz and Regina Perata, a lesbian couple who've been together 10 years, followed by Antoinette and Keith Edwards, married 31 years, and Eugene Woodworth and Eric Marcoux, partners for 57 years.

As the ad closes, Keith Edwards says, "No one should be treated differently for any reason." Jeannie adds, "Love is love, you know. It belongs to everybody."

What the ad doesn't tell you is that the Edwards have a son who is gay and lives in Portland.

"Being African American, we're very familiar with discrimination and being treated differently," said Keith Edwards, a 61-year-old electrician. "I hope people will be able to look at things from a different perspective and realize, 'There, but for the grace of God, go I.' My son once made the statement, 'Why would I choose to be this way?'"

Another ad features a video of a married couple from Happy Valley who cite the Golden Rule as they explain why they support gay marriage.

"I would absolutely not want anyone to tell me that I could not get married," says the wife.

Basic Rights has posted additional videos online at

Tim Nashif, political director for the

, a statewide Christian-based network that helped pass Measure 36, said Basic Rights did its research for the ad campaign.

"They framed in some arguments that would move the voters," he said, "but that doesn't make their arguments true."

Nashif challenged claims in the group's direct-mail brochure that say gay marriage would be civil and not affect religious marriages. The law makes no such distinction, he said. Legalizing same-sex marriage could affect religious liberties, he said. It could, for example, force some religious groups that lease facilities for weddings to accommodate same-sex couples even if the groups' faith doesn't allow them to, Nashif said.

Frazzini said her group respects religious freedom.

In any case, Nashif said that when Basic Rights makes a move to challenge the state ban on same-sex marriage, his group will "fight just as hard as we did last time."

Volunteers and staff members for Basic Rights have been canvassing neighborhoods this summer and last to engage in one-on-one conversations with residents about why marriage matters to gay couples.

Last Tuesday evening, Demi Espinoza, 26, field organizer for Basic Rights, and Donnella Wood, 41, a volunteer and Portland movement therapist and educator, split up and knocked on doors in Tigard.

Wood says she wants to tell people why it's important for her and her partner, Jill Weir, 40, an executive for Camp Fire USA Portland Metro Council, to marry.

"When people know people who are gay and lesbian and see them in committed relationships, that is when hearts and minds change," she says.

At the second house she approaches, Wood finds a woman who is willing to talk. They have a friendly conversation, but the woman says her religious beliefs conflict with gay marriage.

"We're probably not going to move her," Wood says later.

She has a 15-minute conversation with a young college student at the next house. He argues that marriage is a spiritual pact between two people and God and should have nothing to do with the state.

Next Wood finds Jonathan Yates outside by his pickup after feeding the limbs of a termite-infested apple tree through a shredder. The 36-year-old delivery driver needs no persuading.

"If two people want to get married," he says, "that really is not much of my business." --