The Advocate monthly magazine is out with its new issue and gracing the cover for the feature piece “Forty Under 40″ is Chad Griffin, who they describe as “aggressive, calculating, and determined to end inequality for gay and lesbian couples once and for all. This is why Chad Griffin, mastermind of the federal lawsuit against Proposition 8, is the new face of the marriage movement.”
Here’s an except from Andrew Harmon’s excellent story:
In Perry, Griffin masterminded the legal team—a ripped-from-the-headlines combination of Ted Olson, a former solicitor general under George W. Bush, and David Boies, Olson’s legal adversary in Bush v. Gore. He launched the American Foundation for Equal Rights to help foot the bills that are accompanying the legal challenge. The organization didn’t exist a year ago. Milk screenwriter and foundation board member Dustin Lance Black only hinted at an early iteration of the group in this magazine’s previous “Forty Under 40” issue, and it remains a small operation, with one full-time staff member and a board that includes Kristina Schake, Griffin’s business partner in the communications and consulting firm Griffin|Schake, and director Rob Reiner, who tapped Griffin in the Las Virgenes campaign and has worked with him on early-education causes. Aesthetically, the foundation’s website is nearly indistinguishable from, say, the Tea Party movement’s site: no rainbow hues, no equality symbols, just American flags—something Griffin was adamant about. “That’s my flag too. That’s the LGBT community’s flag as much as any other group,” he says. “We aren’t some different class of people that wants some unique right.”
Recent Comments