Steven Goldstein, Chair and CEO.  From the time Steven founded Garden State Equality in 2004, New Jersey has enacted 210 LGBT civil rights laws at the statewide, county and local levels – more LGBT civil rights laws enacted in less time than in any other U.S. state, ever.  PolitickerNJ.com ranks him as one of the 20 most powerful people in New Jersey politics.  New Jersey Monthly ranks him as one of the state’s 100 most powerful people in all walks of life.   And under Steven’s leadership, Garden State Equality became the first statewide civil rights organization in American history to be showcased in an Academy Award®-winning film.  
 
Steven was co-campaign manager of Jon Corzine's successful 2000 campaign for the U.S. Senate.  As a lawyer on the staff of U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill, Steven was the staff point-person for nine federal civil rights bills that became law.  Among them is the Freedom to Access to Clinic Entrances Act, still the only stand-alone pro-choice statute enacted at the federal level.  Before entering government, Steven won 10 Emmy Awards as a television news producer.
 
Steven and his partner Daniel Gross, together since 1992, made history in September 2002 when they became the first same-sex couple in the wedding announcements of The New York Times.  Their religious wedding in Montreal, and civil union the next day in nearby Vermont, was covered around the world.   
 
Steven holds a B.A. summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Brandeis University, an M.P.P. (Master in Public Policy) from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, an M.S. from the Columbia School of Journalism, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School.   Fulfilling a lifelong dream at age 47, Steven is studying for the rabbinate at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.   He has been on leave from rabbinical school to lead Garden State Equality full-time, for which he has declined a salary since founding the organization.