Third Annual 100 Most Eligible Bachelors

From:  OUT

RICHARD SOCARIDES

Writer/Lawyer/Activist

Richard Socarides (born 1954) is a Democratic political strategist and commentator and a New York attorney. He was a White House adviser under United States President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1999 in a variety of senior positions, including as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Adviser for Public Liaison. He worked on legal, policy and political issues and served as principal adviser to Clinton on gay and lesbian civil rights issues. He is one of the highest ranking openly gay persons ever to serve in the federal government. Under Clinton, he was Chief Operating Officer of the 50th Anniversary Summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Socarides has also worked as special assistant to Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). From 2000 to 2006, Socarides held senior positions at Time Warner, New Line Cinema, and AOL. A long-time gay rights advocate, Socarides was the founding president of Equality Matters in 2011.

Socarides currently serves as Of Counsel to the New York and Los Angeles law firm of Brady Klein & Weissman, where his practice focuses on litigation, family law and civil rights. Socarides has written extensively on political and legal topics, including for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and Politico, and is a frequent commentator on television. He has received awards from the Human Rights Campaign, the Lesbian and Gay Law Association of Greater New York, the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, and the Henrick-Martin Institute.

Socarides is a board member of the Purpose Foundation (AllOut.org) and the Lesbian & Gay Law Association of Greater New York (LeGaL). Previously, he served on the boards of directors of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and Lambda Legal.

Socarides, who is openly gay, is the son of the late Charles Socarides (1922–2005), a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who is widely regarded as the father of conversion therapy, and an outspoken critic of the American Psychiatric Association's 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. In 1992 the elder Socarides co-founded NARTH, in response to the American Psychoanalytic Association's 1992 decision to change its position on homosexuality.

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