Winning Marriage
The Inside Story of How Same-Sex Couples Took on the Politicians and Pundits—and Won
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
In this updated, paperback edition of Winning Marriage, 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. With depth and grace he reveals the inner workings of the advocacy movement that has championed and protected advances won in legislative, court, and electoral battles over the years since the landmark Massachusetts ruling guaranteeing marriage for same-sex couples for the first time. The paperback edition includes a new afterword on the historic 2015 Supreme Court ruling on marriage that includes practical lessons from the marriage campaign that are applicable to other social movements. From the gritty clashes in the state legislatures of Massachusetts and New York to the devastating loss at the ballot box in California in 2008 and subsequent ballot wins in 2012 to the joys of securing President Obama’s support and achieving ultimate victory in the Supreme Court, Marc Solomon has been at the center of one of the great civil and human rights movements of our time. Winning Marriage recounts the struggle with some of the world’s most powerful forces—the Catholic hierarchy, the religious right, and cynical ultraconservative political operatives—and the movement’s eventual triumph.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In an insider's account that focuses as much on the faces behind the movement as the movement itself, Solomon captures a seminal period in the fight for civil rights in America. Currently the national campaign director of Freedom to Marry, Solomon describes the aftermath of Massachusetts's 2003 decision legalizing gay marriage. Rising quickly from a volunteer for the Massachusetts Freedom to Marry Coalition to the executive director of MassEquality, Solomon had a front-row seat to the campaign to defeat a constitutional amendment backed by then-Governor Romney that would have reversed Massachusetts' same-sex marriage court ruling. Later chapters describe how victories were achieved in the New York state legislature and in ballot boxes across America all of which required radically different tactics as well as how the movement was eventually able to gain the support of President Obama and win a decisive judicial victory in the Supreme Court that opened the floodgates to gay rights across America. As Solomon writes about these later campaigns in which he had a larger leadership role, the book loses its focus on the individuals who made up the movement, shifting from history to memoir, but Solomon's deep knowledge and passion for the cause is clear throughout. If nothing else, Solomon's narrative serves as a tribute to those who made gay marriage happen and as a manual for how to craft a successful political movement in the future.