Marc Solomon
Freedom to Marry’s national campaign director, Marc Solomon, was in Dallas on Wednesday (May 27) to discuss his new book, Winning Marriage: The Inside Story of How Same-Sex Couples Took on the Politicians and Pundits — and Won.
Predicting how the Supreme Court will rule, Solomon said, “I have huge confidence we’ll prevail.”
Solomon was in the Supreme Court listening to the arguments last month. He said marriage equality will win for three reasons.
First is the power of the arguments for equality. Next is the lack of substance in opponents’ arguments.
Solomon cited one argument made by the attorney for the state of Michigan, who argued that if gay couples marry, straight couples will be less inclined to marry and more children will be born out of wedlock. Asked what studies he had to prove that, the Michigan lawyer couldn’t answer,
Instead, the pro-equality side talked about one of the Michigan plaintiff couples who adopted four children. Each partner adopted two, but because of state law couldn’t adopt each other’s children, proving tangible harm to the children who each has only one legal parent.
Solomon said the third reason equality will win in the Supreme court is “where we’ve taken this country.”
He cited several recent polls that each showed more than 60 percent support for marriage equality including a majority of people across the south. He credits the change in polling numbers to several things.
“We shared who we are and talked about why marriage is important to us,” he said. That happened not just in cities, but in suburbs and rural areas of states across the country: “We waged smart political campaigns. We have a great track record of re-electing our friends.”
Solomon said he expects all 50 states to have marriage equality by the end of June and that Equality Texas, working with allies in the Legislature, did a great job this session killing any anti-LGBT and anti-marriage legislation.
