David Blankenhorn
Founder and president, Institute for American Values

David Blankenhorn is founder and president of the Institute for American Values, a private, nonpartisan organization devoted to contributing intellectually to the renewal of marriage and family life and the sources of competence, character, and citizenship in the United States.

A 1998 profile in the New York Times describes Blankenhorn as a "consensus builder for a moral base in society." USA Today describes Blankenhorn as "leading a grassroots movement" to strengthen marriage (2000) and as "a pioneer in the fatherhood movement" (1999). A 1995 profile in the Los Angeles Times called him "the de facto navigator" of a new fatherhood movement. Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School states: "No one writes about the crisis in American family life with more candor, intelligence, and sympathetic understanding than David Blankenhorn." Norval Glenn of the University of Texas calls Blankenhorn's 1995 book, Fatherless America, "one of the most important and provocative books of this decade." The Idaho Statesman describes Fatherless America as "the bible of the fatherhood movement."

Blankenhorn has co-edited five books: Rebuilding the Nest: A New Commitment to the American Family (1990); Seedbeds of Virtue: Sources of Competence, Character, and Citizenship in American Society (1995); Promises to Keep: Decline and Renewal of Marriage in America (1996); The Fatherhood Movement (1999); and The Book of Marriage: The Wisest Answers to the Toughest Questions (2001).

In 1994, Blankenhorn helped to found the National Fatherhood Initiative, serving as that organization's founding chairman. He also serves on the board of directors of the National Parenting Association. In 1992, he was appointed by President Bush to serve on the National Commission on America's Urban Families. A frequent lecturer, Blankenhorn's ideas have been cited in Time, Newsweek, the Economist, and elsewhere, and his articles have appeared in scores of publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The Public Interest, First Things, and Christianity Today. He has been profiled by the CBS Evening News and other news organizations, and has been featured on numerous national television programs, including Oprah, 20/20, Eye to Eye, CBS This Morning, The Today Show, Charlie Rose, ABC Evening News, Equal Time, and C-SPAN's Washington Perspectives.

Prior to founding the Institute in 1987, Blankenhorn worked as a community organizer in Virginia and Massachusetts. He served two years as a VISTA Volunteer. A native of Jackson, Mississippi, Blankenhorn attended public schools in Jackson and in Salem, Virginia. As a high school student, he founded the Mississippi Community Service Corps and the Virginia Community Service Corps. In 1977, he graduated magna cum laude in social studies from Harvard, where he was president of Phillips Brooks House, the campus community service center, and the recipient of a John Knox Fellowship. In 1978, he was awarded an M.A. with distinction in comparative social history from the University of Warwick in Coventry, England.

Blankenhorn was born in 1955. He lives in New York City with his wife, Raina, their son, Raymond, and their two daughters, Sophia and Alexandra.

 

 
  
Evan Wolfson
Executive Director, Freedom to Marry

Evan Wolfson is Executive Director of Freedom to Marry, the gay and non-gay partnership working to win marriage equality nationwide. Before founding Freedom to Marry, Evan served as marriage project director for Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, was co-counsel in the historic Hawaii marriage case, and participated in numerous gay rights and HIV/AIDS cases.

Evan previously served as Associate Counsel to Lawrence Walsh in the Iran/Contra investigation, and as an Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn, New York. Between Yale College and Harvard Law School, Evan spent two years with the Peace Corps in West Africa.

Citing his national leadership on marriage equality and his appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court in Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale, the National Law Journal in 2000 named Evan one of "the 100 most influential lawyers in America."

In 2004, Evan was named one of the "Time 100," Time magazine's list of "the 100 most influential people in the world."

Evan Wolfson’s first book, Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People’s Right to Marry, was published by Simon & Schuster in July 2004 and was re-released in paperback with a new foreword in June 2005.