Faith-based organizations are targeting U.S. Sens. Kay Hagan and Richard Burr during the Fourth of July weekend.

A group of national religious organizations including Faithful America and the PICO National Network and are hoping to influence the senators to vote for more affordable family health care by airing radio commercials during Congress' Independance Day recess.

Joe Harvard, of the First Presbyterian Church in Durham, speaks on the commercial airing in North Carolina. "This is not who we are as a nation," Harvard says. "America can do better."

The group is also airing commercials in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana and Nebraska, targeting legislators in those states. They can be heard at the group's Web site.

A Raleigh nonprofit is mounting a national campaign for gay marriage.

Founded in late 2005, Faith in America aims to end the "abuse of religion" to support discrimination of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

As part of the 40th anniversary of a Supreme Court case that struck down anti-miscegenation laws, it is running ads in Capitol Hill newspapers of prominent interracial couples, including Sens. Jim Webb, Mel Martinez and Mitch McConnell, who do not support gay marriage.

"These are incredible hypocrites," said Mitchell Gold, president of Faith in America and co-owner of Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, a furniture chain based in Taylorsville, according to Roll Call ($).

The nonprofit's executive director is Jimmy Creech, a former Methodist minister who lost his credentials when he performed a gay marriage in Chapel Hill in 1999.