Matthew Daniels

Matthew Daniels is an American academic and human rights scholar.

In the late 1990s and through the 2000s, Daniels campaigned against the proposed recognition of same-sex marriage in the United States, which he viewed as a threat to the traditional family. Daniels led the drafting of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment and unsuccessfully lobbied for its passage during the administration of President George W. Bush.

He 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.

Early life and education Daniels was born in 1963 in Spanish Harlem, New York City. His father was Guy Daniels, a poet and translator of Russian literature.

Daniels has described his childhood as "miserable"; his father deserted Daniels' mother when he was a toddler. She continued to raise him in Spanish Harlem, He was troubled by legal developments in states like Vermont and Hawaii, fearing the prospect of gay marriage legalized through the judiciary (Hawaii's Supreme Court delivered the first major legal victory to American gay marriage advocates in 1993; see Baehr v. Miike ). Daniels' concerns led him to believe that only a constitutional amendment could prevent this.

2000s and Federal Marriage Amendment In 2001, Daniels led the drafting of the Federal Marriage Amendment through the Alliance for Marriage, It was announced in July, and the profile of the Alliance was raised significantly, as was its fundraising intake. Daniels presented it to President George W. Bush that year. Many of these critics, including James Dobson and Reverend Jerry Falwell, coalesced around the Arlington Group. Daniels continued to campaign in support of the amendment in 2006, which was also defeated in both the House and Senate.

Daniels' activism also 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. Daniels also launched the Digital Human Rights Ambassador Program at the University of Costa Rica.

GreatAmericans.com Daniels was a director of GreatAmericans.com, founded in 2008. The project was unrelated to his previous activism and focused on highlighting "positive role models" such as military service members, firefighters, and police officers. The site was an affiliate of the Funny or Die network with support from Sequoia Capital. The website now redirects to the group's YouTube channel.

Human rights Daniels is the Chair of Law and Human Rights at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C. He is also an adjunct professor at Handong International Law School, Handong Global University. He has founded a number of projects that focus on promoting human rights. Daniels founded Human Liberty, a non-profit to raise awareness of extreme human rights violations in countries such as North Korea.

Daniels is the author of Human Liberty 2.0: Advancing Universal Rights in the Digital Age. He has published opinion pieces on threats to digital privacy, women's rights in Afghanistan, and against the use of torture as antithetical to democracy.