Evan Wolfson is Executive Director of Freedom to Marry, the gay and non-gay partnership working to win marriage equality nationwide, and author of Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People’s Right to Marry, published by Simon & Schuster in July 2004 and re-released in paperback with a new foreword in June 2005. Citing his national leadership on marriage equality and his appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court in Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale, the National Law Journal in 2000 named Evan one of "the 100 most influential lawyers in America." In 2004, Time magazine named Evan one of "the 100 most influential people in the world."

Before founding Freedom to Marry, Evan served as marriage project director for Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, was co-counsel in the historic Hawaii marriage case, and participated in numerous gay rights and HIV/AIDS cases. Evan previously served as Associate Counsel to Lawrence Walsh in the Iran/Contra investigation, and as an Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn, New York. Between Yale College and Harvard Law School, Evan spent two years with the Peace Corps in West Africa.

Blog Entries by Evan Wolfson

Respect for Marriage Act Introduced in Congress: Time to Dump "DOMA"

40 Comments | Posted September 16, 2009 | 01:34 PM (EST)


When Mark McNealy was laid off from his job in April, he lost his employer-provided health insurance. He could still pay a reduced rate for insurance through COBRA for 18 months, but his partner, Robert Meredith, a cancer survivor, could not. Because the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act" ("DOMA")

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Winning the Freedom to Marry? Cue the Attack on the Gays!

Posted April 13, 2009 | 10:33 AM (EST)


Computer-generated clouds roil on an apocalyptic backdrop as fake lightning flashes. Actors stiff as zombies recite horror stories, punctuated by protestations that they are animated by love. Is this new political ad warning of the economic hardships confronting families, a call to action on health care or job loss? Is...

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Will the California Supreme Court Strike Down Prop 8, or "Willy-Nilly Disregard" Its Duty?

Posted March 30, 2009 | 11:27 AM (EST)


If the March 5 oral argument before the California Supreme Court was any guide (which oral argument isn't always), Chief Justice Ronald George may be on the verge of making a terrible, heartbreaking mistake.

The Court is due to rule soon on a set of challenges to Proposition...

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Marriage and Gays: What Would Lincoln Do?

Posted February 11, 2009 | 11:22 AM (EST)


Abraham Lincoln may have been the first American to write about a same-sex couple getting married. His 1829 poem recounting the marriage of Nate and Billy was "perhaps the most explicit literary reference to actual homosexual relations in 19th century America." Lincoln's most important early biographer, William Herndon, initially included...

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Macy's Joins the Parade For Marriage Equality

Posted May 30, 2008 | 11:52 AM (EST)


"Teenagers travel in droves, packs, swarms…. To the librarian, they’re a gaggle of geese. To the cook, they’re a scourge of locusts. To department stores they’re a big beautiful exaltation of larks…. all lovely and loose and jingly."  So spoke Bernice Fitz-Gibbon, Director of Advertising for Macy's, in 1960, explaining...

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A Week Later in California, What's Next?

Posted May 22, 2008 | 03:01 PM (EST)


It’s been a week since the highest court in our nation's most populous state, California’s Supreme Court, handed down its persuasive ruling upholding the freedom to marry.  A week since fairness and equality won out and many are wondering: what do we do now? 

The answer: We defend...

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Today is Freedom to Marry Day - Just Don't Say "Gay Marriage"!

Posted February 12, 2008 | 03:37 PM (EST)


As Americans across the country celebrate Freedom to Marry Day today, seizing the opportunity to have conversations with family members, friends, and coworkers about the importance of ending same-sex couples' exclusion from marriage, hopefully they'll talk a lot about gay couples and why marriage matters -- without saying

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Al Gore Endorses the Freedom to Marry

Posted January 23, 2008 | 03:49 PM (EST)


Once again, Al Gore gets it exactly right.

On January 17, just before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and the country's celebration of, and recommitment to, the work of winning civil rights, the Nobel Laureate and former Vice President posted a video on Current TV entitled "Gay men...

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Let California Ring: Talking About Change Makes It

Posted October 23, 2007 | 12:42 PM (EST)


One woman has people talking across California.

They've seen her on TV, looking lovely in her wedding dress. She tries, over and over, to walk down the aisle to her groom, but again and again is blocked by obstacles in her way. She's the nameless centerpiece of a new...

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A Tearful Republican Mayor Comes Out -- For the Freedom to Marry

Posted September 20, 2007 | 06:42 PM (EST)


A Republican from California stood up for the values he believes in -- fairness, equality, love, commitment -- and explained in a powerful, emotional press conference why he now has come to support the freedom to marry for same-sex couples.

No, it wasn't Arnold Schwarzenegger (yet), but...

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Marriage Equality: A Cause and Conversation That Won't (and Shouldn't) Stop

Posted September 13, 2007 | 01:09 PM (EST)


In the last several weeks, there were a few strong reminders that discussion about ending gay people's exclusion from marriage will not just disappear. Just last week, the California legislature passed a bill for the second time, picking up votes, to remove the different-sex restriction on couples seeking to...

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This Week's Gay Debate: A Prime-Time Opportunity for Straight Talk on Marriage

Posted August 8, 2007 | 11:49 AM (EST)


Thursday night the country will get the opportunity to hear Democratic presidential candidates discuss the lives and needs of gay and lesbian Americans during the forum hosted by Human Rights Campaign and Logo. The forum comes in the midst of a year that has seen record advances...

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If You Want to Be a Leader, You Can't Be Afraid to Lead

Posted July 26, 2007 | 04:07 PM (EST)


On Monday in the first-ever CNN/YouTube Democratic Presidential debate, Americans directly challenged candidates to address the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage. The questions posed by people sharing their stories and truly looking for answers were clear and concise. The candidates' answers, on the other hand, while affirming, were still...

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