Fast-forward one year, and Goodman, 21, who lives in Bala Cynwyd in the township, finds himself at the fore of a small but growing trend in Pennsylvania. He is prodding Lower Merion to join 16 other municipal and county governments in Pennsylvania that have enacted laws protecting members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community from discrimination.
On July 7, Goodman and members of his group, Equality Lower Merion, watched as 13 township commissioners voted without dissent to draft an ordinance he proposed.
Next month in Doylestown, the Borough Council is poised to pass an LGBT antidiscrimination ordinance.
And in Radnor, another college student - Pennsylvania State University sophomore Taj Magruder - is trying to replicate Goodman's success in his hometown.
"We're ready to change the world, and we're not afraid to go out and to start doing it," Goodman said of this youth-driven activism.
In 21 states - New Jersey, Delaware, New York, and Maryland among them - his ardor could have been spared for other causes. But Pennsylvania legislators have been loath to consider adding an LGBT clause to the state's antidiscrimination statute.
"The whole world is inexorably headed in the direction of recognizing civil rights for these folks," said State Rep. Dan Frankel (D., Allegheny), who has introduced such legislation for the last 10 years. "As usual, Pennsylvania is late to the table on anything with even a semblance of progressiveness."
On one hand, Frankel said, most Fortune 500 companies provide employment protections for LGBT people. On the other, "I have colleagues who insist that they've never met [an LGBT] person."
In increasing numbers, local governments have begun to fill that void. Area municipalities that have passed laws include Philadelphia, Lansdowne, Swarthmore, West Chester, and New Hope.
