Phillip Martin was chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. Martin served as the Tribe’s principle elected official for 32 years, and had a record of service to the Tribal government of 40 years.  

Kent P. Jackson is a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He wrote an article titled “Are Mormons Christians? Presbyterians, Mormons and the Question of Religious Definitions” for the 2000 edition of Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions.

Sharlotte Neely is a professor of anthropology at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights. She has expertise in North American Indians, especially the Cherokee, Shawnee and Navajo. NKU has a Native American Studies program. She wrote Snowbird Cherokees: People of Persistence (University of Georgia Press, 1993) and co-wrote This Land Was Theirs: A Study of Native Americans (Mayfield Publishing, 1998).

Read an article about Native Americans’ Day that explains when, where and how that day is celebrated.

Read a Feb. 19, 2008, Boston Globe story about colleges adding classes about Mormonism, in part in response to Mitt Romney’s presidential run.

Geoffrey Kors is senior legislative and policy strategist for the National Center for Lesbian Rights and former executive director of Equality California, a nonprofit group that advocates on behalf of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Californians.

Former California state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, sponsored legislation – vetoed Sept. 6, 2006, by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – that would have prohibited in public schools teaching or instructional materials that discriminate against people based on sexual orientation.

Phil Burress is president of Citizens for Community Values, which has offices in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio. Read the CCV report “The Legal Liability Associated with Homosexuality Education in Public Schools.”

Nate Monson is executive director of the GLBT Youth in Iowa Schools Task Force, based in Des Moines.