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November 23rd 2010 1400hrs


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Prom axed after lesbian's date request
Topic Started: Mar 11 2010, 09:52 AM (183 Views)
xray
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Prom axed after lesbian's date request

By Shelia Byrd, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

March 11, 2010

JACKSON, Miss. - A school decided Wednesday not to host a prom dance after a lesbian student demanded she be able to attend with her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo.

The Mississippi school district's policy requires that senior prom dates be of the opposite sex. The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi had given the district until Wednesday to change that policy and allow 18-year-old Constance McMillen to escort her girlfriend, who is also a student, to the dance on April 2.

Instead, the school board met and issued a statement announcing it wouldn't host the event at Itawamba County Agricultural High School in Fulton, "due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events."

The statement didn't mention McMillen or the ACLU. When asked by The Associated Press if McMillen's demand led to the cancellation, school board attorney Michele Floyd said she could only reference the statement.

"It is our hope that private citizens will organize an event for the juniors and seniors," district officials said in the statement. "However, at this time, we feel that it is in the best interest of the Itawamba County School District, after taking into consideration the education, safety and well being of our students."

The ACLU said a school policy banning same-sex prom dates violated McMillen's constitutional rights.

Kristy Bennett, legal director for the ACLU of Mississippi, said the district was trying to avoid the issue.

"But that doesn't take away their legal obligations to treat all the students fairly," Bennett said. "On Constance's behalf, this is unfair to her. All she's trying to do is assert her rights."

Bennett said she wouldn't allow McMillen to comment on Wednesday, saying "she's still trying to process" the district's actions. Calls to McMillen's cellphone went unanswered.

Itawamba County is a rural area of about 23,000 people in north Mississippi near the Alabama state line. It borders Pontotoc County, Mississippi, where more than a decade ago school officials were sued in federal court over their practice of student-led intercom prayer and Bible classes.

Anna Watson, a 17-year-old junior at the high school, was looking forward to the prom, especially since the town's only hotspot is the bowling alley, she said.

"I am a little bummed out about it. I guess it's a decision that had to be made. Either way someone was going to get disappointed - either Constance was or we were," Watson said. "I don't agree with homosexuality, but I can't change what another person thinks or does."

Other students are on McMillen's side.

McKenzie Chaney, 16, said she wasn't planning to attend the prom, but "it's kind of ridiculous that they can't let her wear the tuxedo and it all be over with."

A Feb. 5 memo to students laid out the criteria for bringing a date to the prom, and one requirement was that the person must be of the opposite sex.

The ACLU said McMillen approached school officials shortly before the memo went out because she knew same-sex dates had been banned in the past. The ACLU said district officials told McMillen she and her girlfriend wouldn't be allowed to arrive together, that she would not be allowed to wear a tuxedo, and that she and her girlfriend might be asked to leave if their presence made any other students "uncomfortable."

McMillen said she feared she would be thrown out of the prom because "we do live in the Bible Belt."
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This mess was exactly what the ACLU and Constance McMillen wanted. Just another example of the homosexuals wanting to make a spectacle of their perversion. The school board should change the policy.... and should have before the ACLU got involved. Now the ACLU have the publicity they had hoped for, and the school board has deprived all students of the prom for 2 misfits.

Let the openly lesbian couple attend.... and feel the reaction of their peers (if any).


>Anna Watson, a 17-year-old junior at the high school, who was looking forward to the prom: "I don't agree with homosexuality, but I can't change what another person thinks or does."

A mature observation from someone so young.
Edited by xray, Mar 11 2010, 10:19 AM.
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Bruce
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If the rest of the students are okay with it, what harm can it do. If everyone behaves and no booze or drugs are involved, there shouldn't be a problem. Kids will sometimes do things to shock adults and in a month from now these two kids will probably be over each other.
The prom dance is for the kids, not the school board
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Beancounter

I am SICK of these homosexuals parading their sexuality.
I am SICK of people who only talk about (perceived) rights, without any regard for their fellow human beings.
Thanks a lot for nothing Pierre Trudeau.
I am also SICK of the ACLU.
The world would be better off without all these people trying to change the world to their SICK agenda.
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Bruce
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Beancounter
Mar 11 2010, 10:29 AM
I am SICK of these homosexuals parading their sexuality.
I am SICK of people who only talk about (perceived) rights, without any regard for their fellow human beings.
Thanks a lot for nothing Pierre Trudeau.
I am also SICK of the ACLU.
The world would be better off without all these people trying to change the world to their SICK agenda.
You're sick alright.... but if you are that sick, take two Asprins and go back to bed....
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Beancounter

Quote: "but if you are that sick, take two Aspirins and go back to bed...."

Unfortunately that will not cure the sicko's: the homosexuals and the ACLU.
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xray
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Beans, I agree with you. But of course that won't change anything. It's a different world these days.
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xray
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See, more publicity. The school district should have said nothing in the first place. Now they are going to have it rammed down their throats.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lesbian teen sues to force school prom

By Shelia Byrd, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

March 12, 2010

JACKSON, Miss. - An 18-year-old lesbian student who wanted to take her girlfriend to her senior prom is asking a federal judge to force her Mississippi school district reinstate the dance it canceled rather than let the couple attend.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi on Thursday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oxford on behalf of 18-year-old Constance McMillen, who said she faced some unhappy classmates after the Itawamba County School District said it wouldn't host the April 2 prom.

"Somebody said, 'Thanks for ruining my senior year."' McMillen said of her reluctant return Thursday to Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton.

The lawsuit seeks a court order for the school to hold the prom. It also asks that McMillen be allowed to escort her girlfriend, who also is a student at the school, and wear the tuxedo.

The district's decision Wednesday came after the ACLU demanded that officials change a policy banning same-sex prom dates because it said it violated students' rights. The ACLU said the district violated McMillen's free expression rights by not letting her wear a tux.

McMillen said she never expected the district to respond the way it did.

"A lot of people said that was going to happen, but I said, they had already spent too much money on the prom" to cancel it, she said.

McMillen said she didn't want to go back to Itawamba County Agricultural High School in Fulton the morning after the decision, but her father told her she needed to face her classmates.

"My daddy told me that I needed to show them that I'm still proud of who I am," McMillen told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "The fact that this will help people later on, that's what's helping me to go on."

The school board statement said it wouldn't host the event "due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events" but didn't mention McMillen. District officials didn't return calls seeking comment Thursday.

Same-sex prom dates and cross-dressing are new issues for many high schools around the country, said Daryl Presgraves, a spokesman for GLSEN: Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a Washington-based advocacy group.

"A lot of schools actually react rather than do the research and find out what the rights of these students are," said Presgraves.

In 2002, a gay student sued his school district in Toronto to allow him to attend a prom with his boyfriend. A judge later forced the district to allow the couple to attend and stopped the district from canceling the prom.

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., said a bill he's introduced in Congress would make it illegal to discriminate against gay and lesbian school students. He said at least 10 states have such laws, and his bill is modeled after those.

"This situation with the prom is a perfect example of why we need to protect students from discrimination. In this case it's a prom. It other cases, it's getting beaten up or killed," Polis said.

The school district had said it hoped a privately sponsored prom could be held.

Southside Baptist Church Pastor Bobby Crenshaw said he's seen the South portrayed as "backwards" on Web sites discussing the issue, "but a lot more people here have biblically based values."

Itawamba County is a rural area of about 23,000 people in north Mississippi near the Alabama state line. It's near Pontotoc County, Miss., where more than a decade ago school officials were sued in federal court over their practice of student-led intercom prayer and Bible classes.
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Beancounter

I am sick of homosexuals. I am sick of the ACLU.
Why do you have to force your sick ideas down my throat?
Get a life you no-good-for-nothings!
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Bruce
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Beancounter
Mar 12 2010, 11:32 PM
I am sick of homosexuals. I am sick of the ACLU.
Why do you have to force your sick ideas down my throat?
Get a life you no-good-for-nothings!
How are they forcing their lifestyle down your throat, were you planning to attend that prom.
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Beancounter

How are they forcing their lifestyle down your throat, were you planning to attend that prom.

By going public of course and let the whole world know. Simple eh?
But obviously beyond the scope of a left-wired "brain."
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