Marriage equality's lawyer.

• Author: Mills, Emily
• Position: Janson Wu - Biography - Interview

JANSON WU IS PERSISTENT, and that character trait has helped this young attorney make waves in the fight for full equality in the United States.

Wu is a staff lawyer with the New England-based organization Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), and his hard work in the name of equality was recognized last year when he was given the David Carliner Public Interest Award by the American Constitution Society.

The award, named for one of the country's most groundbreaking immigration and civil rights lawyers, is given each year to an attorney in mid-career doing important public interest work. The $10,000 prize is part of an effort to encourage these professionals not to transition into private and/or corporate law.

Wu's win seems like a no-brainer: He was instrumental in getting marriage equality passed by the New Hampshire legislature in 2010. Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, wrote a letter of recommendation for the award based on that work: "I now have a husband, not just a 'friend' or partner, because of Janson Wu's efforts in our midst."

The campaign in New Hampshire wasn't exactly a cakewalk. No state had ever passed marriage equality legislatively. And the state has a reputation for shunning the influence of outsiders, so Wu had to gain the trust and respect of local politicians and organizations that hoped to tackle the issue.

First up was state representative Jim Splaine. One of the state's record 400 volunteer legislators, Splaine introduced the marriage equality bill in 2009, when, as Wu says, "no one thought there was any chance of passing marriage equality in New Hampshire."

Wu's work eventually led to the building of a broad coalition of local and national gay and lesbian rights groups that helped push the legislation. Wu says this was his first real experience with legislative lawyering, and it became a sort of crash course in everything from drafting legislation and testimony to ghostwriting op-eds and letters to the editor of various state newspapers. He also searched for families harmed by marriage discrimination that could tell their stories to lawmakers and the public.

After intense back-and-forth among the Judiciary Committee, the Legislature, and Governor John Lynch, marriage equality finally passed, officially becoming law on January 1, 2010. There have since been several attempts to repeal the legislation, but the then-Republican-controlled House defeated each of them, the...