Marty Rouse served as National Field Director for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) based in Washington, DC from 2004-2020.  He was recruited to HRC after heading MassEquality, the group that led the fight to secure marriage equality in Massachusetts (the first state in the US to achieve marriage equality).  Marty spearheaded HRC’s efforts to build and flex the political muscle of the LGBTQ community across the US, playing pivotal roles in winning marriage equality in Hawaii, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and Washington states, before marriage equality was secured nationwide by the US Supreme Court in 2015. 

A native New Yorker, Marty was the State LGBT Director of Bill Clinton for President, worked on LGBT issues under Mayor David Dinkins and Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger. 

In the Clinton Administration at the US Dept. of Health and Human Services, Marty helped bring attention to the health disparities experienced by LGBT people.

During the Obama Administration, the US State Department sent Marty to Nepal to work with civil society groups and others to address LGBTQ equality.  In Kathmandu he marched with the US Ambassador and other Embassy staff in the Nepal Pride Parade. 

Marty graduated from the State University of New York at Stony Brook which included one year at Tübingen University, Germany. He was also a guest speaker at an HIV/AIDS symposium in Hamburg, Germany and has traveled the country extensively.