Maggie Gallagher

Maggie Gallagher
Gallagher in 2010
Personal details
Born	(1960-09-14) September 14, 1960 (age 56) Lake Oswego, Oregon, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Commentator

Margaret Gallagher (born September 14, 1960), better known by her working name Maggie Gallagher, is an American writer and socially conservative commentator. She wrote a syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate from 1995 to 2013 and has written books. She serves as president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, a nonprofit organization which lobbies on issues of marriage law. She is an executive committee member, former president and former chairman of the board of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage and other legal recognition of same-sex partnerships.

Maggie Gallagher was born on September 14, 1960 to William Walter Gallagher Sr. and the former Darrilyn Doris Stenz. She is originally from Lake Oswego, Oregon, where she attended Lakeridge High School. She has three siblings: Kathleen, William Jr., and Colleen. Her parents were initially active in their local Catholic parish, but her mother left the Church when she was 8, but remained interested in spirituality, while Maggie became what she later described as a "pro-life atheist" and a reader of Ayn Rand and Robert A. Heinlein.

In 1982, she earned a B.A. in Religious Studies from Yale University, where she belonged to the Party of the Right in the Yale Political Union. While at Yale she tried marijuana once but did not like it.

On October 6, 2010, she returned to the Union to debate against same-sex marriage with opponent Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry and fellow alumnus of the Yale Political Union. Shortly before she was due to graduate, she fell pregnant after a relationship with a fellow party member. She gave birth to a son out of wedlock. She initially planned to put the baby up for adoption but then changed her mind. Neither of the parents thought that they should marry.