Winning Marriage

Winning Marriage: The Inside Story of How Same-Sex Couples Took on the Politicians and Pundits - and Won
Marc Solomon, 2014, afterword 2015

Premise: The behind-the-scenes details of the fight for marriage equality from one of the key players.

Author Marc Solomon was the executive director for MassEquality from 2006 to 2009, and he then became the campaign director for the nationwide group Freedom to Marry. In short, he is uniquely qualified to tell this story.

The details in this book were fascinating; everything from the personal stories that touched the hearts of Massachusetts legislators to the internal politicking in New York to the testing that went into campaign ads and PR spending. It also includes some moments that were both big picture and largely unseen by the general public - when, how and why advocates decided to make marriage the key of the argument (rather than civil unions) as well as when, how, and why they decided to push President Obama on the issue.

I read this book partially because I wanted to read about a win for the good guys. For me, it's so hard to think back now and remember a time when marriage equality didn't seem inevitable, even if the timeline was in doubt. (Not that I'm not worried about horrible people trying to roll it back today, I just think that they are unlikely to succeed at this point; the momentum of this campaign has carried us really far.) The accounts in this book reminded me of both the (completely nonsensical) pushback and how hard so many people worked for this goal.

I do highly recommend it for a taste of how complicated the reality of national and state politics gets. This type of nuance and strategy is hard to understand without an insider tour like this one, and this is an interesting picture of one way a social movement can fight and win.

4 Stars - A Very Good Book