I want to take a quick break from our scheduled posts to put up a news article that is completely outrageous. In Mississippi, a school district has cancelled their junior/senior prom because one girl wanted to bring her girlfriend with her. The district says they hope private citizens will hold a prom for the juniors and seniors instead - who wants to bet that private citizen will ban the two lesbians from attending? The district is now, of course, facing a lawsuit.
The worst thing about this, to me, is that the school actually issued a memorandum that said all prom dates must be of the opposite sex. They also told the girl that she was not allowed to wear a tuxedo to prom - only boys are allowed to wear tuxedoes.
This is completely unacceptable, and it shows just how prevalent prejudice towards the GLBT community still is. I'm not sure exactly what we call can do about this case in specific - though you might take an example from JT at Bibliofreakblog's response to the matter - but I know I'm outraged and I encourage you guys to take a firm stance against prejudice of this kind. This shows me once again just how important is what we do here at this blog.
10 comments:
There is a facebook group to support Constance McMillen http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Support-Constance-McMillen/357377162035 for those interested.
Thanks for the link! I just became a supporter of that group.
http://www.change.org/actions/view/demand_equal_rights_for_mississippi_high_school_prom_guests
This is a link to a petition you can sign to support the students.
Awesome, thank you! I've signed the petition and encourage everyone else to as well!
thanks for spreading the word about this!
What is so sad, is that sexual racism is still so prevalent in this age.
It really is outrageous that one can still expect conformity in this regard. More than making me angry it really does just make me sad.
I read about this issue this morning and my first thought was: why do people care if she dates a girl and wears a tuxedo to the prom? With all the problems in the world, I just don't understand why this one is still out there!
Back in the mid-1980s a guy at my high school showed up to prom in a kilt and they kicked him out. The other students were outraged, which was nice.
Back in 2001, a friend of mine took me to her prom because she didn't want to take a guy. Everyone looked at us weird. It was funny, because we weren't dating - I was married and she was straight - but still people looked at us weird.
When I first read about this, I was so angry and disappointed. My mother told me this happens every year.
I can't believe it.
That is digusting. In this day and age ffs??? Ugh, it just makes me so angry.
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