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appeared before Hanover trustees to make the same request. Her appeal — which brought many in the crowd to their feet, and found others fighting back tears — left McHale with similarly mixed emotions. “Of course I was incredibly proud of her for standing up — I know that’s not easy,” she says. “But I also feel it’s incredibly sad that a 17-year-old has to stand up and say, ‘Hey, this affects us,’ or ‘Hey, what about us?’, when really it’s the job of the adults to take care of that and not put her in that position in the first place.” McHale admits the issue might be a tough sell in rural areas, where religious institutions wield considerable influence and social progress often comes at a slower pace. And while she’s optimistic the tides of public support will continue to turn in the right direction, she feels at this point, it’s the government responsibility to lead by example. “Sometimes we need our policy makers and decision makers to say, ‘Look, this is enough — we need to move forward,’ ” she says. “The government needs to step in and say, ‘You might be the majority, but that doesn’t mean the people who believe different things than you — or who don’t look like you or act like you — are any less important.’”
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