Prom in Mississippi canceled because a lesbian couple wanted to go too

The Associated Press reports that a school district in northern Mississippi decided yesterday to cancel an upcoming high school prom “after a lesbian student demanded she be able to attend with her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo.” Thanks to Carly for the link, via this post on Autostraddle.

The district has a policy that senior prom dates have to be of the opposite sex. A student named Constance McMillen rightfully chose to challenge that policy so that she could take her girlfriend, also a student, to the prom as her date. The ACLU got involved, telling the district that they had until yesterday to amend its policy. Instead, they issued a statement declaring that they had chosen to cancel the prom altogether “due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events.”

Just to walk through that again, a young woman was told she couldn’t take the person she loves to the prom. When she challenged that decision, the school board decided to avoid the issue by shutting down the whole damned event. It’s a decision that not only penalizes the entire student body for one girl having the courage to fight for equal treatment, but which also villifies the girl by making her the reason why there isn’t going to be a prom this year.

By the way, if you’re like me, and you get a bad taste in your mouth whenever someone uses “the sanctity of marriage” as an excuse to prevent same-sex couples from tying the knot, then you should probably stop reading this post right now because you’re not going to be happy when you find out that a man in Korea just married a pillow. Thanks to Mike for the link.

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