A prom cancelled in Mississippi

I've just read about it in my newspaper, here's an English version of the article:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-10-noprom_N.htm

Things like that make me angry :/

I heard about this from Twitter, and it saddens me. The silver lining in the cloud was that I heard about it in a tweet from author John Green, in which he suggests that he and his followers raise the money to throw "a happy, inclusive prom" for the students, provided that they want it. He's kind of youtube-famous and over a million people follow his tweets, so his fanbase are probably amply capable of making a replacement prom happen. So... I'm sad but also hopeful.

Louisa wrote:I heard about this from Twitter, and it saddens me. The silver lining in the cloud was that I heard about it in a tweet from author John Green, in which he suggests that he and his followers raise the money to throw "a happy, inclusive prom" for the students, provided that they want it. He's kind of youtube-famous and over a million people follow his tweets, so his fanbase are probably amply capable of making a replacement prom happen. So... I'm sad but also hopeful.

Oh man, I haven't checked in on those brothers in too long D: I used to follow Brother Hood 2.0 religiously, and then once it ended, I slowly watched them less and less. Good fellows though, they really are. It's amazing what they've done using nothing more than good will and an infectiously positive outlook.

Mew.

I'm not familiar with John Green but the American Humanist Association is also prepping up to fund and organise a replacement prom. http://www.americanhumanist.org/news/details/2010-03-humanists-prepare-to-hold-lgbt-inclusive-prom-in-miss

My daughter was denied permission to go to her girlfriend's prom. Their not dating or anything, they were going to go as friends (they've been thick as thieves since they were 9), and the school is using the fact that my daughter doesn't go there to exclude her.

Note that I'm not denying they may be an item someday, and my daughter's probably at least bi-curious (aren't most teenagers at some point?), but they were going in order to have a good time and maybe dance a little - they met in dance class, after all.

But it's a Catholic school, so I'm pretty sure I know what the real reason is she's not allowed...

News like this doesn't disturb me as much as it should. I'm not sure how it is for those of you that live in the northern states or not in North America, but this is so commonplace, and I'm almost thankful when I hear about something "passive aggressive" like this as opposed to full-on violent hate crime.

Luckily I live in a fairly standard college town now, but I'm originally from small town Oklahoma. I can attest that things like this and worse happen all the time. My girlfriend at the time and I were harassed daily, had things thrown at us, "lezzie" scrawled on our lockers, etc. It finally culminated in attempted assault! The teachers themselves hinted that if we tried to attend prom, we wouldn't be allowed in or worse.

Michael wrote:I'm not familiar with John Green but the American Humanist Association is also prepping up to fund and organise a replacement prom. http://www.americanhumanist.org/news/details/2010-03-humanists-prepare-to-hold-lgbt-inclusive-prom-in-miss

This is great, though.

euphoriosa wrote:The teachers themselves hinted that if we tried to attend prom, we wouldn't be allowed in or worse.

The teachers may have been trying to do you a favor by warning you. Remember, teachers are not part of the administration, they don't make the decisions - but they have to enforce them, which is often a much tougher place to be.

carl-E wrote:
The teachers may have been trying to do you a favor by warning you. Remember, teachers are not part of the administration, they don't make the decisions - but they have to enforce them, which is often a much tougher place to be.

This is true. Being the hotheaded, misguided (AKA stupid) teenager I was it was so easy to blame everyone in that situation, when many of them were probably just trying to save the two of us from a night that could've easily been disastrous.

Does anyone have any updates about the replacement prom?

euphoriosa wrote:Does anyone have any updates about the replacement prom?

Sadly, this: http://bit.ly/aWwpSx

"Sadly" just doesn't do this indignity justice. The fact that the administration actually participated in such a farce just makes my blood boil.

I've seen too much "plausible deniability" in my life not to recognize it when it happens, and this is a classic case. "Oh, we had no idea there was another dance - and no, we weren't suspicious at all when we only sold 7 tickets..."

There needs to be some kind of punishment for the perpetrators of this indignity - both the administrators and the parents who sponsored the alternative dance. I'm not talking about jail or getting them fired, but something - anything - a pay cut, a demotion, or better yet, public humiliation!

Unfortunately, the public stocks have been outlawed... but it would be perfect.

The administration is acting like they themselves are high school students. That is the bread and butter of the problem. They had every opportunity to allow Constance to go to prom, but instead they allowed all of these shenanigans to happen. Sending a gay student to a fake prom? That is SO 1990's teen movie!

Not to mention the fact that the article makes it look suspiciously like they also sent their special needs students to the fake prom. Because obviously the lesbians and the kids with learning difficulties must be kept separate from the "normal" children. Heaven knows what might happen otherwise.

Wow, that's despicable. I can't even formulate a good response to this. Why is this still happening, even here in the south? It's fucking 2010.

The only thing more touchy than sex is religion!

euphoriosa wrote:Wow, that's despicable. I can't even formulate a good response to this. Why is this still happening, even here in the south? It's fucking 2010.

I agree, it left me speechless.