Senior advisers to the project will be Hilary Rosen and Anita Dunn. Gay-marriage backers start campaign

Gay marriage advocates are launching a coordinated “war room” effort to help disseminate information about the efforts in dozens of states to legalize same-sex nuptials, POLITICO has learned.

The Human Rights Campaign is setting up the effort to support Americans for Marriage Equality — a group that will aim to build on the efforts of the gay rights community following the United States Supreme Court rulings on the issue last year.


Adding a bipartisan dimension to the effort at a time when a number of establishment Republicans are moving to back gay marriage, the war room will be led by SKDKnickerbocker’s Olivia Alair on the Democratic-leaning side, and Brian Jones, the former Republican National Committee official and Mitt Romney adviser, of Black Rock Group.

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Senior advisers to the project will be Hilary Rosen and Anita Dunn of SKDKnickerbocker.

“Our nation is at a turning point, and while a growing bipartisan majority of Americans believe that everyone should be able to marry the person they love, we still have crucial battles ahead to ensure marriage equality becomes the law of the land in all 50 states,” HRC President Chad Griffin said in a statement.

“That’s why we are launching a new communications operation to promote marriage equality: to lift up every voice and every ally in this fight. HRC will bring the best minds from across the nation together and provide every resource we can to end discrimination against loving gay couples once and for all. We will also launch resources to help keep lawmakers, legal experts, and news media informed about developments across the nation,” Griffin said.

The idea behind the new war room is tools for officials in the states dealing with the efforts, as well as the press covering them. In a nod to POLITICO’s Playbook, the group is putting out what they called a “Playbook-style” morning tipsheet focused exclusively on the court cases, legislation and ballot measures related to the issue.

( Also on POLITICO: Case challenging Va. gay marriage ban heard)

HRC led a coalition in 2013 focused on the pro-gay marriage side of the U.S. Supreme Court battles, an effort they deemed highly successful.

Among the upcoming cases are a hearing Tuesday in the Virginia case challenging the state’s marriage amendment. Elsewhere, there will be reviews of Utah and Oklahoma cases where gay-marriage advocates had court success recently. The group will be focusing energy on specific state targets, such as those cases.