Freedom To Marry Action Inc

Programs: See schedule ostate level lobbyingwinning more states is an especially urgent focus of freedom to marry action's central marriage campaign, part of our strategy to create the climate for a supreme court ruling bringing national resolution. 2014 was a historic year for the marriage movement as we brought the freedom to marry to eighteen new states - doubling the list of states to 35 plus the district of columbia. Those eighteen states include alaska, arizona, colorado, idaho, indiana, kansas, montana, nevada, north carolina, oklahoma, oregon, pennsylvania, south carolina, utah, virginia, west virginia, wisconsin and wyoming. With each state won we increase the population with access to the freedom to marry (as of jan. 1, 2015, 70% lived in a state with the freedom to marry compared with 39% at the beginning of the year), and with each state we win, we come closer to our aim of creating a critical mass of states, setting the stage for victory nationwide. The series of historic wins for the freedom to marry in 8 states in 2013 which drew heavily on freedom to marry action's state legislative lobbying expertise and a u. S. Supreme court decision that eviscerated a core component of the so-called defense of marriage act set the stage for the last year in which the freedom to marry was extended through the courts to more and more people on a seemingly daily basis. The sweeping significance of the supreme court's landmark decision in united states v. Windsor last year became evident at the start of 2014 when a federal district court brought the freedom to marry to utah, albeit briefly. In the following 8 months, a total of over 50 federal district courts, state courts and federal appellate courts all concurred: denying the freedom to marry to same-sex couples is unconstitutional. A few states heard that message and agreed; both pennsylvania and oregon gained the freedom to marry when their governors and attorneys general chose not to seek to overturn court decisions. Five others chose to appeal the circuit court rulings affirming the freedom to marry in the 4th, 7th and 10th circuits: utah, oklahoma, virginia, wisconsin and indiana. However on a landmark day in october, the u. S. Supreme court declined to hear those appeals, immediately bringing the freedom to them and sending the unmistakable signal that the supreme court agrees with those circuit court opinions. The next day, the 9th circuit court joined the chorus bringing the freedom to marry to idaho and nevada. Within weeks, the remaining states in all those four federal court circuits saw the freedom to marry. The lobbying work of freedom to marry action was not needed in those states in 2014, but we were called upon to help ensure that two state legislatures - new mexico and indiana -- did not turn the clock back on the freedom to marry by preventing the passage of state constitutional amendments that would have banned marriage for same-sex couples. In both these states, freedom to marry action followed the same strategy we pioneered to win marriage with our partners in new york state. There we built an integrated campaign of all the partner groups working to win marriage. Each group contributed financial resources and expertise, and each group had an equal say in setting direction and managing the campaign. In the campaigns in both new mexico and indiana, freedom to marry action served as the fiscal sponsor to handle the transactions of the campaign. And in each, a campaign manager was contracted with to handle day-to-day activities of the campaign. Freedom to marry action also served as the primary advisor for the campaign, and we utilized our years of experience in researching effective messages and messengers for helping people through their own individual journey to an acceptance of the freedom to marry to serve as the primary resource for each campaign's message development and implementation. Recognizing that more and more of the conversation in the united states around marriage now occurs online, freedom to marry action has invested heavily in our web presence and digital tools. With our consultants at blue state digital, the architects of president obama's first term online campaign, we continued in 2014 to pioneer a variety of digital tools and grow our team expert at deploying them. We now communicate with some 1,400,000 online supporters, up from just 825,000 a year ago and we engage with them to help lay the foundation for winning more states and to help on the other tracks of our roadmap to victory. Our digital action center played a critical role in mobilizing the grassroots action around marriage in these ftwo states. In each state with an active public legislative marriage campaign there is a need for state-of-the-art digital expertise and organizing, and freedom to marry action's digital action center meets those needs by taking on direct management of all the state level campaign's digital needs. The work of freedom to marry action's digital action center entails both start-up activities and ongoing organizing. Start-up includes: "campaign branding""website design, with access to state-of-the-art tools for engaging supporters""list-building in target geographic areas and with target demographics""establishment of a facebook and twitter presence"ongoing organizing includes:"updated website content""emails using best practices to motivate action (volunteering, contacting legislators and outreach to other supporters""strategic use of facebook and twitter, with extensive graphic displays"in each state we assigned one member of our digital action center team to the campaign, and that person then became part of the senior campaign staff, working hand-in-hand with the campaign manager, communications director, and field team. That organizer stayed with the campaign for its duration. In-house, we provided a graphics expert who developed visually compelling graphics to support all of these digital campaigns. And we engaged blue state digital to provide both consultation and access to state-of-the-art tools. In addition to the expertise and time of its talented staff, freedom to marry action also invested financial resources directly in each campaign based on the needs in each state. The results proved successful in both cases. Regardless of the opposition's tactics, freedom to marry action's strategy and work - coupled with the growing sense that the discriminatory constitutional provisions that the opposition sought to pass would very soon be relegated to the dustbin of history -- prevailed. In new mexico, following a state supreme court unanimous ruling declaring it unconstitutional to deny marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples in late 2013 (and thus making it the 17th state with the freedom to marry), we faced the need to prevent the passage of an anti-gay state constitutional amendment during the 2014 state legislative session. Freedom to marry action quickly went to work and developed and implemented a three-pronged strategy to achieve that result. First, with assistance from some of the members of the conservative network of supporters we had developed through young conservatives for the freedom to marry and that we had nurtured and relied on in state battles from new hampshire to new york to minnesota and delaware, we scored a major victory on january 6th when governor susanna martinez (a republican then aiming for a vice presidential nomination), who had previously declared her opposition to the freedom to marry and her commitment to bringing a constitutional amendment to a vote of the people, walked her position back and affirmed that the court ruling was now "the law of the land. " to maintain political momentum, we then made a strategic online ad buy to highlight the story of a local multigenerational hispanic family the family montoya from espa ola who joined the campaign to support their son, brother, and uncle--openly gay roger and his partner salvador. Response across the state and especially in the more conservative, rural northern areas of the state was overwhelmingly positive. This became a linchpin moment for our online campaign launched and supported by our digital action center. They created a new web presence for the campaign, new mexico unites, created over 100 pages of content and ultimately generated over 8,000 emails to lawmakers.

see schedule ofederal lobbyingthe primary goal of freedom to marry action's federal lobbying effort is to end federal discrimination in marriage through overturning the so-called "defense of marriage act" and through passage of the respect for marriage act. In addition we seek to influence both democrats and republicans to support the freedom to marry in their platforms. The ruling that doma's denial of federal protections and benefits for same-sex couples is unconstitutional, was one of 2013's most significant events. Within hours, deportations of the foreign born, but legally wed spouses of us citizens in same-sex relationships were halted. Same-sex couples who were married and living in one of the then 17 freedom to marry states, or the district of columbia, were quickly made fully eligible for the federal protections and responsibilities afforded all married couples. . However, the doma decision did not complete the job. For those legally married same-sex couples (and widows or widowers) who had moved to - or live in - one of the now 13 states that continue to discriminate against their marriages, access to their federal marital protections required concerted work in both congress and with the administration. There is no one rule across all federal programs as to whether the validity of a marriage is determined by where the couple got married ("place of celebration") or where the couple is living ("place of domicile" or "place of residence"). For same-sex couples the "choice of law" standard can make all the difference between respect for their marriage - and the federal protections that flow from it - and no protection whatsoever. As a result, during 2014 freedom to marry action partnered with our movement's legal organizations and others to help guide the obama administration toward full and fair implementation of the supreme court's ruling across all federal programs and throughout the country. In commendable response to our advocacy and the constitution's command, the administration took strong steps in crucial areas such as immigration, taxation, pension and personnel policies for federal employees and service members. By ensuring that married couples are respected by the federal government, even in discriminating states, we made a real and immediate difference in people's lives, put the entire country in play, and underscored that the "house divided" cannot stand. In addition, through our dc-focused work, we continued to amplify the case for the freedom to marry among the political and media elite in the capital, creating the drumbeat within the beltway among opinion-shapers like political operatives, political media, elected officials -- all of which influence the judiciary. Freedom to marry action's bipartisan federal team and media team cultivated relationships with many such opinion-leaders on both sides of the aisle, and we continued to make our case through salons, briefings, events at the national press club, and other forums. Recognizing that shaping the media climate in a bipartisan way is important to continuing the growth in support for the freedom to marry, freedom to marry action has been conducting outreach among conservatives for the last two years. Those contacts proved crucial in defeating the passage of anti-gay state constitutional amendments in both new mexico and indiana in 2014. To marshal unexpected voices in support of the freedom to marry while also dramatically demonstrating that the growth in support is increasingly bi-partisan and that america is indeed ready, freedom to marry created young conservatives for the freedom to marry in late 2012. This program's newly expanded roster includes a who's who of under-40 former romney and mccain campaign leaders along with cnn commentator margaret hoover and meghan mccain, and the three daughters of jon huntsman. In 2014 young conservatives continued to assert its voice in conservative national media and priority states while having active presences in networks such as college republicans and young republicans. In 2014, we also launched an intensive organizing effort to enlist state and local party organizations to support a republican party platform that makes room for those who support the freedom to marry. With a focus on early primary states, the young conservatives visited iowa, new hampshire, nevada and south carolina. While working to shift the platform, an equally important goal of this program was creating and reinforcing the media narrative of support from conservatives - especially those who represent the future of the gop. In each state, the team of young conservatives held meetings with prominent elected republicans and others in party leadership posts. Those meetings received extensive press coverage in key local media markets and they were reinforced with media interviews, especially on local conservative talk radio. These stories, interviews and appearances all reinforced the message that support exists and is growing in the least likely of places - and those stories were then picked up by national media. These messages continually make the case to opinion-shapers inside the beltway-political operatives, political media, elected officials, and the like, all of which influence the judiciary. Freedom to marry's bipartisan federal team and media team cultivated relationships with many such opinion-leaders on both sides of the aisle, and we continue to make that case through salons, briefings, events at the national press club, and other forums. One measure of the effectiveness of our work is the growth in the number of co-sponsors of the respect for marriage act in congress. Introduced in both the house and senate in 2013 for the second time, the bill had 228 co-sponsors at the close of this congressional session in late 2014 (183 in the house and 44 in the senate) up from 215 co-sponsors at the end of 2013 (172 in the house and 43 in the senate). This includes the first two republican co-sponsors of the bill, reps. Ileana ros-lehtinen (fl) and richard hanna (ny). Through effective, bipartisan messaging and coordinated action taken with the growing army of supporters of marriage, freedom to marry action created a climate of support and momentum at a time when key decision-makers, particularly the supreme court, were actively considering how to address discrimination in marriage.