Freedom to Marry
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| Formation | 2003 |
|---|---|
| Dissolved | 2016 |
| Type | 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) |
| Purpose | Same-sex marriage |
| Headquarters | New York City |
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Founder
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Evan Wolfson |
| Website | freedomtomarry.org |
Freedom to Marry was the national bipartisan organization dedicated to winning marriage for same-sex couples in the United States. Freedom to Marry was founded in New York City in 2003 by Evan Wolfson, whom many consider to be the architect of the modern marriage movement. Wolfson served as president of the organization through the June 2015 victory at the Supreme Court, until the organization’s official closing in February 2016.
Freedom to Marry drove the national strategy - what Freedom to Marry called the “Roadmap to Victory” - that led to the nationwide victory. The strategy aimed at a Supreme Court win bringing the country to national resolution, once advocates had succeeded in creating the climate for the court by working on three tracks: winning marriage in a critical mass of states, growing national majority support for marriage, and ending marriage discrimination by the federal government.
In 1983, at a time when same-sex couples had no country- or state-level recognition anywhere in the world, Evan Wolfson wrote his Harvard Law School thesis on the constitutional right to marriage for same-sex couples. He believed that by claiming the vocabulary of marriage, same-sex couples could transform the country’s understanding of who gay people were and, as a result, why exclusion and discrimination are wrong. The thesis outlined the arguments that ultimately became a national conversation and a legal and political set of battles that led to a transformation of public understanding and a triumph in the Supreme Court.
Wolfson went on to serve full-time as the Marriage Director of Lambda Legal throughout the 1990s. He worked as co-counsel in Hawaii’s landmark Baehr case, which launched the ongoing international freedom to marry movement. The Hawaii case foreshadowed the pattern ahead: a legal breakthrough followed by political defeat, because of insufficient progress in changing hearts and minds. When, in 2000, Wolfson was approached by leaders of the Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Fund, he successfully proposed that the foundation make a $2.5 million challenge grant investment in 2001 – then the largest foundation award in the history of the LGBT movement from a highly respected, non-LGBT foundation – to help Wolfson build a new campaign to win marriage. The campaign was officially launched in 2003, the birth of Freedom to Marry.
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Wikipedia