Moth stories have the power to bring you into a world that is often not your own and leave you wishing that you could live in that world

Just a little bit longer since 1997 the moth has shared more than 50,000 stories with audiences around the world through shows

Workshops and on the moth podcast and the moth radio hour once the curtains have closed the rooms emptied and the voice is quieted

It's the stories still ringing in our ears that whisper over and over

We are all of us more alike than we are different

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From PRX this is the moth radio hour. I'm Meg Bulls and in this hour

We bring you three stories of history and tradition or more specifically the ways people are often restricted by these legacies

especially when they're dictated by law

Attorney Michael Steinberg told this first story at an evening we produced at St. Anne's and the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn, New York

Here's Michael Steinberg live at the moth

In 1997 I was appointed legal director of the ACLU of Michigan

It was the honor of my life, but I had considerable anxiety about whether I was up to the task

You see I viewed the ACLU as being the organization

Responsible for keeping our country true to its stated values of freedom and equality in democracy and it was a tall order and I

There's a lot of pressure

Plus it seemed like the ACLU legal directors of other state affiliates were all graduates of Harvard or Yale Law School

And then he had already argued cases in the US Supreme Court

me I had been a high school teacher and a soccer and basketball coach and I did a little political

Organizing before I went to a state law school and started a very small private practice and I had no idea

...