Oral History Center University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California The Freedom to Marry Oral History Project Evan Wolfson Evan Wolfson on the Leadership of the Freedom to Marry Movement Interviews conducted by Martin Meeker in 2015 and 2016 Copyright © 2017 by The Regents of the University of California ii Since 1954 the Oral History Center of the Bancroft Library, formerly the Regional Oral History Office, has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ********************************* All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Evan Wolfson dated July 15, 2016. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Excerpts up to 1000 words from this interview may be quoted for publication without seeking permission as long as the use is non-commercial and properly cited. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to The Bancroft Library, Head of Public Services, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should follow instructions available online at http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/libraries/bancroft-library/rights-and-permissions It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Evan Wolfson, “Evan Wolfson on the Leadership of the Freedom to Marry Movement: The Freedom to Marry Oral History Project” conducted by Martin Meeker in 2015 and 2016, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2017. iii Evan Wolfson, ca. 2008 iv Evan Wolfson was the founder and president of Freedom to Marry. Wolfson was born in 1957 in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Wolfson was active in political and social justice causes from an early age. He attended Yale as an undergraduate and then served in the Peace Corps from 1978-1980 in West Africa. He returned to the United States and enrolled in Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, he first developed the notion that securing marriage for same-sex couples was an important and necessary step in the broader movement of equality for gay men and lesbians. Wolfson worked as an assistant district attorney while also volunteering with Lambda Legal, the fledgling gay and lesbian legal defense organization. He later accepted a fulltime position as a litigator for Lambda and worked on many landmark cases, including Dale vs. Boy Scouts of America and many dealing with discrimination against people with AIDS. Wolfson played a key role in the Hawaii marriage cases in the 1990s which resulted in the first-ever trial in which the argument on behalf of extending marriage was given its first full hearing. Wolfson established Freedom to Marry in 2001 and the organization went public in 2003. Between 2003 and 2015, when Obergefell v. Hodges extended marriage nationwide to same-sex couples, Freedom to Marry served as a national campaign headquarters through which strategies were devised, messages crafted, and supporters mobilized. The campaign switched into high gear in 2009 and 2010 with the expansion of the organization and the hiring of new key staff members. All along, Wolfson served as the leader of his organization, working alongside movement partners at the legal and the political organizations. In this interview, Wolfson describes the formative experiences of his upbringing and education, in particular what motivated his decision to champion the extension of marriage when few in the gay movement thought it a worthy goal. He provides insight into the legal struggles of the 1980s and 1990s, when the challenges were many and the victories few. And he describes in depth the marriage movement through the lens of his work at Freedom to Marry. In particular, he discusses the development of a multi-dimensional strategy for winning marriage first in a handful of states and, ultimately, at the United States Supreme Court. v Table of Contents—Evan Wolfson Freedom to Marry Project History by Martin Meeker xi Freedom to Marry Oral History Project Interviews xiii Interview 1: September 21, 2015 Hour 1 1 Childhood and family background — Father’s position as neighborhood pediatrician — Life in professional Jewish enclave set against Pittsburgh’s greater diversity — Involvement in Western Pennsylvania’s U.N. club — Traveling to New York for Boiberik, summer Yiddish camp — Family’s immigration history and disdain for the “old country” — Early political commitments — Entering high school amidst increasing racial strife — Division of student body along racial and ethnic lines — Interest in law inspired not by “intellectual gamesmanship” of it but potential to promote social good — Enrollment at Yale University — College coursework and extracurricular activities — Important figures encountered through Yale Political Union — Awareness of own sexuality; reluctance to come out or act on it: “I saw it as society’s problem, not my problem” — Connecticut non-discrimination law — College girlfriends: “sex was sex and it was good but I knew that that was not really who I was” Hour 2 22 Sublimating sexuality through leadership drive — Acting as legislative intern to Joe Biden — Dealing with ideals versus reality of politics through positivity and recommitment to goals — Involvement in Carter presidential campaign — Joining Peace Corps from 1978-1980, assignment to West Africa — Challenges and successes of Peace Corps program — Transactional nature of relationships formed with local West Africans through Peace Corps — Teaching English as a foreign language — Reasons for interacting with locals more than other volunteers — Having sex with men for the first time — Senegalese approaches to and ideas about homosexuality — How language and its limitations circumscribe ways of conceiving sexuality — Applying to Harvard School of Law Interview 2: September 22, 2015 Hour 1 37 Transition from Peace Corps to Harvard law school — Difficulty of switching from immersive French environment to reading technical legal texts — Figuring out “what it meant to be gay now in the United States” — Coming out to dormmates — Dedicating self both to studies and living life as an out gay man — Cambridge dating scene — AIDS crisis of the 1980s — Crisis as something distant — Cambridge, “a bubble,” prevents crisis from affecting day-to-day life vi — Organizing for Dukakis’ gubernatorial campaign — Shock of Reagan presidential victory — Capstone law paper (1983) — Distinguishing between ‘sexualism’ and ‘homophobia;’ reasons for using the former in final law paper — Paper’s departure from prevailing paradigm of identity politics — Searching for universal commonalities using lens of human rights — Building on discourse of human rights, as opposed to civil rights — Civil rights as individual’s relationship vis-à-vis the state, human rights encompasses something much broader — Arguing for marriage, a gateway to intangible “responsibilities and meanings,” as both a human and civil right — Marriage as “the language of love” — Gay marriage’s intersection with right to privacy — Place of hearts-and-minds strategy in the history of gay rights litigation — Meeting John Boswell at first gay pride parade — Growing equality of women within marriage as proof of its flexibility — Evolution of marriage away from compulsion, procreation, racial exclusion, and gendered subordination — Early stance taken against domestic partnership as end-goal of gay rights movement Hour 2 56 Position as King’s Country assistant district attorney — Volunteer work with Lambda Legal — Coming out to colleagues and coworkers — Trial experience with the sex crimes bureau — Moral ambiguities of first case — Role in the marital rape exemption appeal — Working with the office of Independent Counsel on Iran-Contra hearings — Challenges of Iran-Contra counsel — Receiving highest level of security clearance as an openly gay man; would not have been possible years earlier — Working full-time with Lambda Legal — Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) and task force on sodomy reform — Alternating exhilaration and fright of the Hardwick trial — Hardwick loss coincides with onset of AIDS crisis — Effect of Hardwick loss on the organizational direction of the movement; renewed push-back against Reagan’s America Interview 3: November 10, 2015 Hour 1 75 More on being hired as senior staff attorney at Lambda — Initial focus on HIV/AIDS cases — Lambda’s first People magazine story — Hostility