by Karen Sosnoski

Recently, Thomas Coleman, executive director of Unmarried America, contacted Alternatives to Marriage Project founders Dorian Solot and Marshall Miller to propose merging Unmarried America with AtMP. Coleman will be phasing out of his role as executive director of Unmarried America to pursue advocacy work for the Emancipation Project.

Dorian and Marshall, who are in the process of transitioning out of their own Executive Director roles at the Alternatives to Marriage Project, saw this as the perfect opportunity to expand AtMP's knowledge and membership base during the transition period. They accepted. As Coleman puts it, "Why have two organizations struggling financially to do this advocacy work, when we can combine memberships and have one strong national organization led by an executive director with a modest rather than a disappointing salary?"

Unmarried America will discontinue its separate membership and advocacy, but will keep its identity as an online library. Coleman will continue to add to this library and will be available to answer questions, donating about twenty percent of his time, or one day a week.

Tom Coleman brings a passionate personality, a law degree, and many years of activist experience to his work for unmarried people. He first became interested in the rights of unmarried people when he was at Loyola Law School and a "rebel without a cause." A landlord didn't want to rent to him because he was single. Coleman knew as well of a friend who, when he went to apply for a job, always said he was widowed -- because to be in his thirties and single seemed to carry too much of a stigma. Coleman did some research and found almost no laws against marital status discrimination. Concerned with this void, in 1972 he convinced the American Bar Association Law Student Division to adopt the "Single Person's Bill of Rights," which focused on ending housing and employment discrimination. He followed this up with years of tirelessly advocating for unmarrieds facing workplace, tax, and housing/insurance issues.

For the past several years, thanks to a donation from a major benefactor (now deceased), Tom Coleman has been able to devote himself full time to work for Unmarried America (formerly the American Association of Single People.) Coleman is up front about the challenges of organizing people around this issue. "Unmarried people don't realize the extent to which they're short-changed. Other minorities are educated early on about discrimination; our culture doesn't educate single people that way. Ours is a fluid rather than fixed constituency -- someone who's 21 might think 'I'm just not married yet.' More unmarried people might get involved if politicians reached out to them. As it is Democrats focus on working families, Republicans on family values; no one will say the 'S' word."

Despite the challenges, Coleman is proud of the work he and Unmarried America have done, particularly to get domestic partner benefits on a gender neutral track and to fight for housing fairness and tenants' rights for unmarried couples. Additionally, Coleman feels good about helping to educate the business community and people in power about the perspectives and rights of unmarried people. A year and a half ago, the cover of Business Week featured Unmarried America along with an eight page spread.

According to Coleman, AtMP has been great at reaching out to unmarried couples, both heterosexual and in the GLBT community. He thinks with the added Unmarried America membership base, AtMP can more assertively reach out to singles as well. All in all, he feels that "working as one viable national advocacy organization, we can have one group that's stronger [than each were alone]."

AtMP recently awarded Thomas Coleman a Lifetime Achievement Award "in appreciation for his decades of leadership and vision regarding rights for single and unmarried Americans, advocacy for recognition of family diversity, and passionate, effective work for social justice."