30 Facts About Matthew Daniels

Matthew Daniels is an American academic and human rights scholar.

Matthew Daniels' advocacy was controversial among some social conservatives, concerned by his de-emphasis of gay marriage as an issue of Christian morality.

Matthew Daniels teaches at The Institute of World Politics where he is the Chair of Law and Human Rights and founder of the Center for Human Rights and International Affairs.

Matthew Daniels was born in 1963 in Spanish Harlem, New York City.

Matthew Daniels's father was Guy Daniels, a poet and translator of Russian literature.

Matthew Daniels has described his childhood as "miserable"; his father deserted Matthew Daniels' mother when he was a toddler.

Matthew Daniels continued to raise him in Spanish Harlem, working as a secretary.

Matthew Daniels was unable to work and went on welfare, and became depressed and alcoholic.

Matthew Daniels graduated from Dartmouth in 1985, the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1993, and earned a Ph.

Matthew Daniels' work stressed the importance of fathers; he commissioned research demonstrating the negative impacts of single-mother families and advocated making divorce more difficult to obtain.

Matthew Daniels cited his childhood without a reliable father figure as a reason for his opposition to same-sex marriage.

Matthew Daniels told USA Today that he is not anti-gay, but rather, wanted to make sure that children have both a mother and father, which recognition of same-sex marriage would jeopardize.

Matthew Daniels was a founder of the Alliance for Marriage in 1999.

Matthew Daniels was troubled by legal developments in states like Vermont and Hawaii, fearing the prospect of gay marriage legalized through the judiciary.

Matthew Daniels' concerns led him to believe that only a constitutional amendment could prevent this.

In 2001, Daniels led the drafting of the Federal Marriage Amendment through the Alliance for Marriage, working with conservative legal scholars, including former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, Robert P George, and Gerard V Bradley, over several months in the spring and summer.

Matthew Daniels continued to lobby for the draft to be taken up in Congress.

Matthew Daniels convinced conservative Mississippi Democratic congressman Ronnie Shows to introduce the draft amendment as a bill in May 2002.

Shows lost his subsequent election; Matthew Daniels then worked with Republican freshman from Colorado Marilyn Musgrave, who introduced the bill again on May 21,2003, but it received less support than the previous year.

Matthew Daniels became controversial among American social conservative activists who did not like the Federal Marriage Amendment's allowance of civil unions and Matthew Daniels' de-emphasis of homosexuality as a Biblical sin.

Matthew Daniels vowed to continue the fight, stating that the bill had already succeeded in raising public awareness and getting politicians on the record in the run up to the 2004 elections.

Matthew Daniels continued to campaign in support of the amendment in 2006, which was defeated in both the House and Senate.

Matthew Daniels' activism drew intense criticism from gay rights' activists and civil rights organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Campaign, both of which strongly opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Matthew Daniels is creator and producer of the Human Rights Network, a digital public education campaign to promote human rights awareness through entertainment media.

Matthew Daniels launched the Digital Human Rights Ambassador Program at the University of Costa Rica.

Matthew Daniels is the Chair of Law and Human Rights at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC He is an adjunct professor at Handong International Law School, Handong Global University.

Matthew Daniels has founded a number of projects that focus on promoting human rights.

Matthew Daniels founded Human Liberty, a non-profit to raise awareness of extreme human rights violations in countries such as North Korea.

Matthew Daniels is the author of Human Liberty 2.0: Advancing Universal Rights in the Digital Age.

Matthew Daniels has published opinion pieces on threats to digital privacy, women's rights in Afghanistan, and against the use of torture as antithetical to democracy.