Be the Person You'd Want to Follow
Eagle Scout Zach Wahls challenged the Boy Scouts of America’s anti-gay policy in May 2012 when he delivered three boxes of petitions demanding change, signed by more than 275,000 people.
Inspired by the story of Jennifer Tyrrell, a den mother forced to resign from her seven-year-old son’s Cub Scout pack because of her sexual orientation, and the groundswell of support she has received since, Mr.… Read more »
…10 year-old Milo Cress started BeStrawFree, a website that encourages restaurants to cut plastic waste by not automatically offering plastic straws to customers. “I’m not out to ban plastic straws,” he said. “Just cut back on them. Way back, if possible.” Full story >>… Read more »
…Abby Goldberg, of Grayslake, Ill collects 155,000 signatures to petition Gov. Pat Quinn not sign legislation (SB 3442) that would make it illegal for her town — or any other one statewide — to ban the use of plastic bags. Abby is 12 years old. She explained to the Chicago Sun-Times. “You can make a difference no matter how old you are.”… Read more »
…Ryan Slezia, a former student at Texas A&M, mobilized over 650 current students to block a planned protest of a soldier’s funeral by the mean-spirited members of the Westboro Baptist Church. Full story >>… Read more »
… Read more »There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better or for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.
On Sunday, April 22, in response to the tragic suicide of a 14-year-old boy who had been relentlessly hasassed and bullied after coming out as gay, the Sioux City Journal faced down those who would say that bullying is simply a part of life and declared, “those people are wrong, and must be shouted down.”
… Read more »We must make it clear in our actions and our words that bullying will not be tolerated.
Dear Lady Gaga,
I am writing to you in your capacity as champion of the Born This Way Foundation to make you aware of The Citizen Leader as a potential tool to use in your foundation’s mission to empower youth and inspire bravery. The Citizen Leader: Be the Person You’d Want to Follow is a guide to help young adults and teens be authentic and courageous and to make an uncompromising and unapologetic commitment to a set of personal core principles that speak to who they are, how they aspire to be, and the kind of world they want to live in.… Read more »
Dear Mrs. Obama,
Please have a stern talk with your husband about the importance of living by one’s values. He seems to be losing sight. Two days ago, he signaled that he will not issue an Executive Order that would protect men and women who work for Federal contractors from either being discriminated against in hiring or being fired because they are gay or lesbian.… Read more »
My thanks go out to Marcia Yerman for this article that emerged from our conversation about my book, The Citizen Leader, and the everyday application of its many ideas in families and in the community.
Posted on The Huffington Post on April 4, 2012, Ms. Yerman begins:
As the 2012 election fills the news cycle with a mixture of information and noise, many people will tune in and some will opt out.… Read more »
My grandfather came over on the boat from Sicily at the age of 20, landed at Ellis Island in New York Harbor on April 30, 1900, settled among his Italian relatives in Brooklyn and set up shop as a barber. Four years later, he married a Sicilian farm girl, newly arrived in America from his home village of Juliana in the mountains above Palermo.… Read more »