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Man behind the marriage amendment By Karen S. Peterson, USA TODAY Matt Daniels, 40, is a man in the middle of a growing maelstrom, a newly minted mover and shaker. Marriage amendment backer Matt Daniels looks on as Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) announces changes in the legislation. By Tim Dillon, USA TODAY. Most Americans have never heard of him, but his influence is helping drive one of the country's hottest issues. Daniels is the force behind the proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriages nationwide. Passionate, dogged, savvy — physically imposing at 6-foot-4 — Daniels is a verbal whirlwind. The father of children ages 2 and 4 is a dogmatic, sometimes prickly force to be reckoned with, even when seated casually on a couch in his modest home in suburban Washington, D.C. He is willing to change the Constitution to make his point that children should be raised in a home with a mom and a dad, a concept he says is being challenged in courtrooms around the country. Same-sex marriages, he says, are a "continuation of a path to destroying marriage." Only a "constitutional fix" can roll back the tide. His solution: His fledgling organization, the Alliance for Marriage, engineered a federal marriage amendment. His concept resonates with many conservatives. President Bush has endorsed it. Legislation is pending in both houses of Congress, and among heavyweight legislators signing on as sponsors is Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Daniels' views on family, he says, are based in large part on personal experience. He insists he wants to protect what he did not have himself: a dad who stuck around to raise him in a traditional family. "My growing up was miserable," he says. His father was "a gifted and irresponsible aspiring writer" who deserted his mother when Daniels was a toddler. He was raised in New York's Spanish Harlem, which had become crime-ridden. He was mugged both at knifepoint and gunpoint. The Daniels file Age: 40, born in New York City's Spanish Harlem Occupation: Head of Alliance for Marriage; force behind the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Education: Dartmouth College, 1985; University of Pennsylvania Law School, 1996; Brandeis University, 2003. Married: 1995; two children, ages 2 and 4 Hobbies: Hiking, cycling, skiing "all the outdoor things I didn't get to do in New York City." Greatest strength: "My driveness, my workaholism. As a kid, I made a decision to work my way out of my circumstances." He says this also is his biggest weakness. His mother worked until she got off at a wrong bus stop in the early 1970s and was attacked. She ended up depressed and disabled, on welfare. "Things would have been different if my father had been around," he says. While his friends ended up on drugs or in jail, Daniels says his mom functioned as his "moral compass." She emphasized education. "I knew I could use it to get out of my circumstances. I outworked everyone to succeed." He had, he says, "a survival-driven work ethic," which helped him graduate from Dartmouth College in 1985. In 1996 Daniels became director of the Massachusetts Family Institute, a non-profit organization concentrating on family issues. Also in 1996, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In 2003 he earned a doctorate in politics from Brandeis University. Over time, he decided that the wrong people, judges, were making social policy and predicted that courts would someday permit gay marriages. Lawsuits filed in different states reflected "values out of touch with the beliefs of most Americans regarding marriage." His vehicle for change is the Alliance for Marriage, which he began building in 1999 with a wide-ranging, multi-faith board of advisers. "Marriage is not the private property of the Christian community," he says. Advisers include sympathetic Catholics, Jews and Muslims, as well as black and Latino church leaders who see traditional marriage "as a transcendent social institution." he says. Walter Fauntroy, a longtime Washington, D.C., civil rights activist, and former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn are among those on board. A half-brother opened his eyes Daniels' childhood helps explain his commitment to work with "people who do not look like me." Daniels grew up physically and emotionally close to a half-brother, a gifted boy from another of his father's four marriages, this time to a black woman. Daniels got a firsthand look at discrimination. As an adult, he also found spiritual solace in the black community. His father, who had kept up an acquaintance with Daniels, died in 1988, and his mother died in 1990. Daniels began searching for a mooring, while working with the homeless in soup kitchens. He was looking for "spirituality. I had no foundation, and I did not want to go on without one," Daniels says. In 1991 he underwent a "conversion experience," from "complete agnosticism" to Christianity, guided by black clergy, who valued traditional fathers at home. "When I first met him, he struck me as an unusual guy," says the Rev. Ray Hammond, a black Boston pastor and Daniels' mentor. "He broke all the traditional molds. Here he is this prototypical white guy, but raised in Spanish Harlem by a single mom, married to an Asian wife, and who had in many ways found his epiphany of faith in the black church." Daniels now belongs to a Presbyterian church he says is regarded as evangelical. He will not label himself as evangelical, though, saying the term has become too emotionally charged to discuss. His amendment campaign began modestly. In 2001 when Daniels proposed it, he was greeted mostly with yawns as he looked for sponsors in Congress. But by 2004, the definition of marriage was in flux, prompted in part by judicial decisions that included the high court of Massachusetts allowing gay marriages. The marriage amendment soon gathered more than 100 sponsors in the House and about a dozen in the Senate, he says. Mike McManus, an evangelical Christian and founder of the non-profit Marriage Savers, calls Daniels' organizing tactics "politically brilliant." And he calls Daniels "articulate, prescient and passionate." In 2003 the fledgling group "raised and spent about $1 million," all from individuals — Daniels does not accept donations from organizations. There are seven staffers; his own salary is $96,000. Marriage was 'act of faith' Repeatedly, Daniels returns to his childhood to explain his commitment to traditional marriage as the cradle for raising children. His bitter experiences made him commitment-shy for years. "I had no role model" for being a husband and a dad, he says. It was "an act of faith" for him to marry in 1995. He is inordinately protective of his wife and children. Death threats have made Daniels fear for their safety, and he refuses to have them identified or photographed. He fusses over his youngsters during a walk, asking his wife if the kids are dressed warmly enough, clucking over possible runny noses. "I put my family's safety above everything else," he says. They represent a future he says his amendment would promote: Mom, Dad and the kids in a traditional family. He is, as his Korean-American wife says, tenacious to the point of being annoying. She calls him a "hardworking, goal-oriented beaver." Daniels insists he is not anti-gay. His alliance, he says, is "not organized around homosexuality. Its mission is to see that more kids are raised in a home with a married mother and father. And the legal status of marriage as between a man and a woman" is a linchpin. "Americans believe that gays and lesbians have a right to live as they choose, but they don't have a right to redefine marriage for our entire society," Daniels says. Opposition from all sides Critics are attacking zealously from opposite points on the political compass. Many deplore the amendment — and Daniels. Many civil rights activists are incensed. "He is trying to convince the country we should write discrimination into the Constitution," says Cheryl Jacques, president of the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for gay rights. "That is wrong, and he is wrong." Daniels, is, Jacques says, "avoiding allowing gay and lesbian couples their humanity. I call on Matt to come to spend a week with our family, with my long-term partner and our fabulous twin 2-year-olds, and see if he feels the same way" about the non-traditional family's "struggle for legal recognition." Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, says the proposal "endeavors to amend our Constitution to enshrine discrimination, deny rights, and divide the country. It is unnecessary, unwise and cynical." Others disdain the proposal because they believe it does not go far enough: It would allow states to permit civil unions or other partnerships for same-sex couples. "We are very concerned about protecting marriage between a man and a woman," says Jan LaRue of the Concerned Women for America, a public policy organization. States could be "free to create marriage in another name, a phony marriage. If we are going to the time and trouble of amending the Constitution, we prefer stronger language." Daniels will not support stronger language. "I am a political realist. I operate within the feasible. This is the only way to get an issue like this passed."