Margaret Hoover is President of American Unity Fund and host of the public affairs television series Firing Line with Margaret Hoover, a reprisal of William F. Buckley’s iconic PBS program. She is an LGBTQ rights activist, a mother, a media personality, a political strategist, and the best-selling author of American Individualism: How A New Generation of Conservatives Can Save the Republican Party (Crown Forum). The great-granddaughter of President Herbert Hoover, Margaret's political work is committed to renewing the Republican Party to enable it to connect with a new generation of Americans. She is a veteran of the Bush White House and two presidential campaigns and is a former Capitol Hill staffer.

Nathan Parsons-Schwarz is the Director of Operations for American Unity Fund. Nathan has over seven years of experience working as a field operative in ten states, including work for the Republican Parties of Virginia, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania. From 2006 to 2008, he served as Special Assistant to Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, where, among other duties, he coordinated the Secretary’s Civics Initiative. In 2005, Parsons-Schwarz led the efforts of the College Republican National Committee in New Jersey, where he started or strengthened over a dozen chapter throughout the state. He also has extensive experience in volunteer recruitment, absentee and early voting procedures and direct mail.

Devan Patel is Counsel and Senior Director of Legal Affairs at American Unity Fund. He oversees advocacy efforts, coalition building, and legislative matters for LGBT rights and religious liberties. Devan received his B.A. from the George Washington University and his J.D. from Notre Dame Law School, where he was elected as the first openly-gay president of the nation’s oldest Catholic law school. Following law school, Devan clerked on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in D.C. He is the author of various publications, including “The Indefensible Gay Panic Defense.” He additionally serves on the Advisory Council of the Republican National Lawyers Association and is an adjunct professor at Notre Dame Law School. Originally from San Francisco, Devan currently lives in Washington D.C.

Tyler Deaton is the Senior Advisor to American Unity Fund. He works at the state and federal levels to advance nondiscrimination legislation by working with Republicans. Tyler’s first experience in the movement for LGBTQ freedom was in New Hampshire, where in 2011-2012 he helped lead the successful lobbying and electoral efforts to protect the freedom to marry in New Hampshire and preserve New Hampshire’s nondiscrimination laws. Tyler and his husband James live in the Washington, D.C. area.

Professor Dale Carpenter is a Senior Policy Advisor to American Unity Fund and the Judge William Hawley Atwell Chair of Constitutional Law at Southern Methodist University. He previously served as the Charles J. and Inez Wright Murray Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at SMU, teaching Constitutional Law I as well as LGBT Rights and the Law. Prior to joining SMU, Professor Carpenter taught for 16 years at the University of Minnesota, where he served as a Distinguished University Teaching Professor and the Earl R. Larson Professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law. He won multiple teaching awards. He is also an editor of Constitutional Commentary. The Texas native received his B.A. degree in history, magna cum laude, from Yale College and received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the University of Chicago Law Review. After serving as a law clerk for Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Jones, he practiced at the firms Vinson & Elkins LLP in Houston, and at Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin, P.C. in San Francisco. As the author of numerous articles and an award-winning book – Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas (W.W. Norton & Co., 2012), about the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that invalidated America’s sodomy laws — he is often asked by the media to comment on constitutional law and the First Amendment, as well as sexual orientation and the law.