Teach-in for Equality

Marc Solomon joined Equality California at the beginning of April to serve as marriage director, leading EQCA’s statewide effort to both restore the right to marry and increase public support and acceptance of LGBT families. Prior to joining Equality California, Solomon led the fight to protect marriage equality in Massachusetts as executive director of MassEquality, that state’s LGBT equality organization.

Solomon has worked full-time on efforts to protect and expand marriage equality since February, 2004, just after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the Massachusetts Constitution guaranteed the right of same-sex couples to marry. Facing an unprecedented attack from then-Gov. Mitt Romney, Pres. George W. Bush and the religious right, Solomon led the largest and most successful grassroots campaign in Massachusetts history to defeat efforts to amend the Massachusetts Constitution to take away the right to marry. His work to promote marriage equality in Massachusetts began in 2001 as a board member and lobbyist for the Freedom to Marry Coalition of Massachusetts. Following the victory in Massachusetts, Solomon played a key advisory role in successful efforts to win and protect marriage equality in Connecticut and Vermont.

Solomon has extensive background in public policy, politics, and media, having served as vice president of St. Louis 2004, a community revitalization effort; as legislative advisor to a U.S. senator on Capitol Hill; and as researcher for Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. In 1999, the Rockefeller Foundation selected Solomon as one of 24 of America’s next generation leaders, and invited him to participate in its prestigious two-year Next Generation Leadership fellowship program.

Solomon graduated Magna Cum Laude with Honors in Political Science and Economics from Yale University, and holds a Master’s in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. This May, 2009, the Massachusetts Democratic Party is awarding Marc its prestigious Franklin Delano Roosevelt Award, given each year to someone who espouses FDR’s ideals “with respect to democracy, justice, individual freedoms, and citizenship.”