Marc Solomon
| Marc Solomon | |
|---|---|
| Born |
November 12, 1966 Kansas City, Missouri |
| Residence | New York City, New York |
| Education | Barstow School |
| Alma mater | Yale College |
| Occupation | Gay rights advocate |
Marc Solomon (born November 12, 1966) is a gay rights advocate. He was the national campaign director of Freedom to Marry, a group advocating same-sex marriage in the United States. Solomon is author of the book Winning Marriage: The Inside Story of How Same-Sex Couples Took on the Politicians and Pundits—and Won (ForeEdge, publication date November 12, 2014). As executive director of MassEquality from 2006 through 2009, he led the campaign to defeat a constitutional amendment that would have reversed Massachusetts' same-sex marriage court ruling. Politico describes Solomon as "warm and embracing" and "a born consensus builder—patient, adept at making personal connections, preternaturally gifted at politics without seeming at all like a politician."
Solomon was born and grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. He graduated from the Barstow School in 1985 and Yale College in 1989. At Yale, he was a resident of Berkeley College, an economics and political science major, and co-editor of the Yale Economics and Business Review. He graduated magna cum laude with honors in his major. In 2004, Solomon earned a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Solomon worked on Capitol Hill for Senator Jack Danforth, Republican of Missouri, in two different stints, first as a legislative correspondent (1989) and then as legislative assistant (1991–1994). In between, he worked as a researcher for Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward on his book The Commanders, an account of White House and Pentagon decision-making during the first Gulf War. Solomon joined Danforth in St. Louis and served as vice president of St. Louis 2004, a non-profit organization to make improvements to the St. Louis region by 2004, the centennial of the St. Louis World’s Fair.
Solomon began his work on marriage equality as a volunteer for the Massachusetts Freedom to Marry Coalition in 2001 and worked as a lobbyist for the group in 2002 as it helped defeat a constitutional amendment that would ban gay couples from marrying. Following the marriage ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health in November 2003, Solomon went to work full-time as legislative director of the Massachusetts Freedom to Marry Coalition and then as political director of MassEquality. In January 2006, Solomon took the helm of MassEquality and led the organization in defeating a constitutional amendment that would have barred same-sex couples from marrying. The final vote on the amendment, which took place on June 14, 2007, was 151 opposed and 45 in favor, holding supporters just beneath the 25% threshold they required.
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