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How personal stories win hearts and minds

FreedomToMarryI recently had the pleasure of interviewing Marc Solomon, national campaign director of Freedom to Marry, about the work he and many others have been doing to win the right for same-sex couples to marry nationwide.

It has not been a short or easy journey, but the efforts are most decidedly paying off. Support for marriage equality is at an all-time high in the United States, and there is much hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will make same-sex marriage the law of the land this summer.

What has driven a dramatic increase in support? According to Solomon, what has won hearts and minds has been “the real work of organizing couples to share their stories, and parents and children to share their stories with friends, neighbors and lawmakers.”

The stories of why their marriage — or their parents’ marriages or children’s marriages — were so important. Once people find out they know people who are gay couples, they know them and go to school with them and work with them, that’s when people really start to come around. They see it’s in sync with their value system of the Golden Rule and treating people with respect. It’s not people who want to uproot the institution of marriage. It’s committed people who want to get married to each other. At the heart of it, that’s been how it’s happened.

Read my full interview with Solomon over at Eclectablog.

[Image courtesy of Freedom to Marry.]

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