I first met Evan Wolfson when I was a newly-minted lawyer, volunteering at Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund (LLDEF) under then-Staff Attorney Suzanne Goldberg's supervision as an intern co-ordinating the immigration project that would a year later become a stand alone non-profit organization, the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force (now Immigration Equality). In 1995 and 1996 as tremendous optimism and activity around the Hawaii marriage case, Evan taught me the finer points of public speaking, advocacy, grass roots activism, and techniques of collaboration, but most of all he taught me humility. Evan and I took some road trips, the most memorable was to Philadelphia and then to Penn State, PA to speak at various colleges. I spoke about binational couples, marriage and immigration rights, Evan spoke about the marriage issue more specifically. Those were the days that I cemented my commitment to advocacy and activism around these issues. Almost fourteen years have passed, and Evan has moved from being a Senior Staff Attorney at Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, and its Marriage Project Director, to the role of Executive Director of Freedom To Marry which he formed six years ago. Much of his LLDEF family was there last night, and Evan's continued, seemingly indefatigable commitment to marriage equality was saluted. Noting how far we have come in the movement for full equality in marriage, and nodding to his birthday (which Lambda's Kevin Cathcart called the new "40") Evan noted dryly, that he was certain that it would not take another 50 years to achieve our goal. (Pictured above left, Host Committee chairs Brondi Borer and Jeffrey Campagna; center left Joe Landau and Evan Wolfson; above right, Darren and Howard, top: Blogger and The Birthday Boy. Below: the apartment that hosted the party and glimpses of the stunning art throughout.)