How can I use greater than and less than operator with date values?

I want to render dynamic content for leads with the anniversary date between 7-1-16 and 10-30-16 and I've scripted the following but it's not working? Any ideas on how I can make this work? Can I use a date values stored in custom object to drive content logic using if and else statement?

#foreach($partner in $partner_cList)
#set ($AnniversaryDate = $date.toDate("yyyy-MM-dd", ${partner.AnniversaryDate}))

#set ($Date1 = "2016-7-1")
#set ($Date2 = "2016-10-30")

#if($Date1 <= $AnniversaryDate && $Date2 >= $AnniversaryDate)
#set($matchedpartner = ${partner.partnerID})

#else
#end
#end