Publications

  • The Freedom to Marry Oral History Project

    Leaders in the movement to win the freedom to marry nationwide teamed up with Berkeley's Oral History Center for the Freedom to Marry Oral History Project.

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  • The Freedom to Marry Internationally

    As global leaders, businesses, and people around the world gradually grow to understand that families are helped, and communities and countries made stronger, by protecting all loving committed couples, the momentum for the freedom to marry and human rights worldwide will continue to advance.

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  • ‘Winning Marriage’ by Marc Solomon

    In Winning Marriage: The Inside Story of How Same-Sex Couples Took on the Politicians and Pundits – And Won, Marc Solomon, a veteran leader in the movement for marriage equality, gives the reader a seat at the strategy-setting and decision-making table in the campaign to win and protect the freedom to marry.

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  • The Gun-Control Movement Is Borrowing the Marriage-Equality Playbook — and Hoping for Similar Result

    "The conversation about marriage, Zepatos says, had to appeal to voters’ hearts, not their heads. Messaging had to be disciplined and consistent, and marriage equality activists in every state were armed with a talking-points tip sheet."

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  • Lessons for Philanthropy From the Marriage Win

    Published by Chronicle of Philanthropy on June 28, 2015 Reflecting on the marriage victory at the Supreme Court, Evan Wolfson examines the powerful role of philanthropy in funding a movement. "The important role of philanthropy — which embraced a sustained campaign to promote the idea and invested $120 million in it — cannot and should not be overlooked," he writes.

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  • How We Won Marriage: 10 Lessons Learned

    Following a victory for the freedom to marry nationwide at the U.S. Supreme Court, Marc Solomon breaks down ten key lessons for other movements about how we won, including: conveying a bold, inspirational vision; following an overarching strategy; finding the right messengers; working with bipartisan advocates; and building momentum each and every day.

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  • “Freedom to Marry’s Ladder of Clarity: Lessons from a Winning Campaign (That Is Not Yet Won)”

    Published by Columbia Journal of Gender and law on February 28, 2014 "We had great clarity about the vision," Evan Wolfson said at this Columbia Law Symposium on gay rights and reproductive rights. "If you can’t say what winning is, you’re not going to be able to get there as effectively as you need to."

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  • The Chief Engine of Change: Conversation

    Published by Stanford Social Innovation Review on February 12, 2015 "From the beginning, we at Freedom to Marry believed that the chief engine of change would be conversation; thus, generating conversations was a critical objective," Evan Wolfson and Communications Director Kevin Nix write in this case study. "The right people delivering the right message—amplified across multiple media and advertising platforms, and, yes, millions of conversations—changed the American public's understanding of why gay couples want to marry and of gay people generally."

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  • Until We Could

    The event also featured the debut of the film version of “Until We Could,” a poem written for the occasion by Presidential Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco that was selected for the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.

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  • Video: 10 Years of Freedom to Marry

    Freedom to Marry's own tenth anniversary coincided with 10 years of marriage for same-sex couples in the United States. To celebrate, we held a special event in New York hosted by Cynthia Nixon, featuring this new animated video reflecting on 10 years of Freedom to Marry.

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  • Secrets of Obama’s Evolution: The Inside Story of How the President Backed Gay Marriage

    In this excerpt from his acclaimed book Winning Marriage, Marc Solomon writes of the journey and work that went into ensuring President Obama’s vocal support for the freedom to marry - from talks with his staff to a public campaign.

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  • The Impact of Judicial Decisions on the Midterm Elections

    Published by Center for American Progress Action Fund on November 14, 2014 Watch video from this panel featuring Evan Wolfson discussing federal court decisions in favor of the freedom to marry, and how they impacted Election Day races during the 2014 Midterm elections. The panel takes a look at the political landscape and examines the issues moving forward.

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  • 10 Years of Marriage, 10 Milestones to Celebrate How We Got Here

    Published by Pride Magazine on June 1, 2014 Evan Wolfson contributed this piece to the annual Pride magazine counting down 10 big milestones for marriage in the past 10 years. He writes: "Let’s take a moment to savor and remember how far we’ve come—and with full victory within reach (provided we keep reaching), let’s re-engage to finish the job and fulfill our goal of winning marriage nationwide!"

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  • “Lessons Learned, Symposium Keynote Between Evan Wolfson and Olatunde Johnson”

    Published by Columbia Human Rights Law Review on April 1, 2014 At this symposium, Freedom to Marry president Evan Wolfson shared lessons learned from the marriage movement, brainstorming ways that the right to housing movement can learn from the effort and successes.

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  • Guns, Marriage, and the Constitution

    Published by Open Society Foundation on January 23, 2014 Listen to audio from this conversation between Freedom to Marry founder Evan Wolfson and David Keene, the former president of the National Rifle Association, on the challenges each campaign faced and the strategies they deployed to protect the right to which they are committed: the freedom to marry for same-sex couples and supporters of the right to bear arms.

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  • ‘Why Marriage Matters’ by Evan Wolfson

    Published by Simon & Schuster on June 02, 2005 In the early days of the marriage movement, Evan Wolfson published Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People's Right to Marry, providing a compelling and clear discussion of a question at the forefront of our national consciousness

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  • Marriage Equality and Lessons for the Scary Work of Winning

    In 2003, the same year Wolfson founded Freedom to Marry, a court ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health made Massachusetts the first state where same-sex couples could marry. Marc Solomon took a job as political director and eventually executive director of MassEquality. There, he led the campaign to defend marriage and defeat two constitutional amendments, beating back attacks by the Catholic Church, President George W. Bush, Gov. Mitt Romney, and the right-wing anti-gay industry.

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  • Samesex Marriage and Morality: The Human Rights Vision of the Constitution

    Published by Evan Wolfson on April 1, 2003 While a student at Harvard Law School, Evan Wolfson wrote one of the earliest - and still today, most influential - cases for why the freedom to marry is important and how winning marriage for same-sex couples will signal a broader path to equality for gay and lesbian Americans.

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