Brian Stephen Brown (born c. 1974) is an American activist who is a co-founder of the

National Organization for Marriage The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is an American non-profit political organization established to work against the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States. It was formed in 2007 specifically to pass California Propos ...

(NOM), and has served as its president since 2010, having previously served as executive director. NOM is a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

political organization established in 2007 to work against legalization of

same-sex marriage in the United States The legal recognition of same-sex marriage in the United States expanded from one state in 2004 (Massachusetts) to Same-sex marriage law in the United States by state, all fifty states in 2015 through various court rulings, state legislation ...

. NOM's mission is "protecting marriage and the faith communities that sustain it". Brown is also president of the

World Congress of Families The World Congress of Families (WCF) is an international conference that promotes Christian right values internationally. The WCF is the main event of the International Organization for the Family and focuses on issues like opposition to divorce, ...

Career

In 2001, Brown became the executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, a

socially conservative Social conservatism is a political philosophy and a variety of conservatism which places emphasis on traditional social structures over social pluralism. Social conservatives organize in favor of duty, traditional values and social institu ...

organization. On February 10, 2002 Brown presented a testimony in front of the Connecticut House Judiciary Committee on HB 5002 and HB 5001. Since its founding in 2007, Brown has been

's executive director and was additionally named president in 2010, succeeding

Maggie Gallagher Margaret Gallagher (born September 14, 1960) is an American writer, socially conservative commentator, and activist. She wrote a syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate from 1995 to 2013 and has written several books. Gallagher found ...

. NOM led the initiative to pass California's

Proposition 8 Proposition 8, known informally as Prop 8, was a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment intended to ban same-sex marriage. It passed in the November 2008 California state elections and was later overturned by the ...

in 2008, which intended to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage in the state. In 2012, he announced that NOM would launch a global "Dump Starbucks" campaign in response to that company's support for same-sex marriage. In October 2013, Brown announced that The National Organization for Marriage filed a lawsuit in federal court against the

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...

for releasing confidential tax documents; the lawsuit was settled for $50,000. In 2016, Brown announced the foundation of the International Organization for the Family (IOF), so that NOM could "focus on efforts in America," As of August 2018, Brown was the president of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, an anti-abortion advocacy group which is part of the

(WCF) network supporting far right groups in Europe and other continents. He is on the Foundation Board of Trustees of

CitizenGo CitizenGO is an ultra-conservative advocacy group founded in Madrid, Spain, in 2013 by the ultra-Catholic and far-right HazteOir organization, a similar Spanish platform that has been dedicated to the fight against "gender ideology" since 2001. ...

, a Spanish anti-abortion advocacy group founded in 2013. In late 2019, NOM filed a brief related to the cases about LGBTQ rights—''

Bostock v. Clayton County ''Bostock v. Clayton County'', , is a landmark United States Supreme Court civil rights decision in which the Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation ...

''; ''Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC''; and ''Altitude Express v. Zarda''—pending before the Supreme Court. On October 29, 2019, two Supreme Court justices,

Brett Kavanaugh Brett Michael Kavanaugh (; born February 12, 1965) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on July 9, 2018, and has served since Oct ...

and

Samuel Alito Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. ( ; born April 1, 1950) is an American jurist who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was Samuel Alito Supreme Court ...

, posed for a photograph with Brown inside the Court. The reason for the meeting was unclear. The other two people who posed in the photo were

Gloria, Princess of Thurn and Taxis Gloria, Dowager Princess of Thurn and Taxis (''Mariae Gloria Ferdinanda Joachima Josephine Wilhelmine Huberta''; born Countess Gloria von Schönburg-Glauchau, 23 February 1960) is a German socialite, businesswoman, Catholic activist, art collec ...

and Cardinal

Gerhard Ludwig Müller Gerhard Ludwig Müller (; born 31 December 1947) is a German Catholic prelate who served as the Cardinal-Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012 until 2017. Pope Francis e ...

Personal life

Brown was raised in Whittier,

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. At age 25 he converted from

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

ism to

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. He has a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

from

Whittier College Whittier College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Whittier, California. It is a Hispanic-serving institution, Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) and, as of spring 2024, had 815 ...

, where he was student body president, and a second earned bachelor's in modern history from

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

(that was promoted per tradition to a master's), and is a C.Phil. at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

. The C.Phil. is an interim status for students who intend to complete their PhD within a given time period.

References

External links

Brian S. Brown biography on National Organization for Marriage websiteNational Organization for Marriage websiteThe Clearinghouse for Conservative Action
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Brian S. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century Roman Catholics American anti-abortion activists American anti-same-sex-marriage activists American Roman Catholics Catholics from California Converts to Roman Catholicism from Quakerism National Organization for Marriage people Same-sex marriage in the United States University of California, Los Angeles alumni Whittier College alumni