National Press Club Press Conference - 7/19/11

Robin (pictured above) and I were asked to participate in a national press conference that was held at the National Press Club. We were so excited to be standing with Senator Dianne Feinstein, Courage Campaign Founder Rick Jacobs (pictured here in the front on the left) and two other couples (pictured here on the right) who have suffered hardships due to the Defense of Marriage Act. At the top of this pic on the left is Adam Bink who is the Director of Online Programs for the Courage Campaign. What follows are a bunch of links to the press that we got and a few personal pictures too.

We first made the scene on CNN, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Washington Times. The National Press Club featured our event, and because Robin mentioned Spain in her remarks, we ended up in many Spanish language media sources, the first of which was El Pais.

We had an amazing lunch at the National Press Club's historic clubhouse -- amazing artifacts and stories there. During lunch, everyone was so excited at the amount of press that attended and the fact that there were interesting developments afoot. During the conference, one of the reporters had asked Senator Feinstein if she knew where the President stood on her bill, S. 598 - The Respect for Marriage Act. In ways unknown to this lowly college professor, that question led to this:


We had it on pretty good authority, that our press conference set the stage for the President making this historic announcement which, according to Rick Jacobs was extremely rare given the fact that the legislation has yet to pass either house of Congress.

All in all it was a very good day!