Only for the gay residents- I’m sure the remaining 95% of the (heterosexual) population are quite happy with things there, or were until recently.
To paraphrase Rebecca West:
To be fair, the only evidence we have that the school would have turned Constance and her partner away or asked them to leave if they danced together is, y’know, the school saying so, and the school’s written policy saying so. So there’s no reason to think it might have actually happened.
<insert smilie of your choice here>
And hence a lawsuit. Because no matter what the community at large thinks about homosexuality, a public school is in violation of federal law by having the rule on the books that Constance was told (and the school district affirmed in court) would be used against her and her date to limit their ability to attend the prom in the fashion that they wished.
The community can hate that all they want. The school board can want to vote against a change all they want, as many times as they want, for as many years as they want. But that doesn’t change federal law nor give this community carte blanche to be recalcitrant in their bigotry and take their good sweet time to catch up with civilization, and too bad, so sad for whatever students are oppressed by the rule in the meantime.
And no, it doesn’t matter if the principal had ignored the rule for some students in the past. In fact, that makes it worse, because any time you have a rule that is only arbitrarily applied it opens the door to that rule being used selectively and punitively at some administrator’s whim (as appears to be the case here, if your report has any accuracy) which is an untenable situation of favoritism, and it also flies in the face of this notion that changing the rule would actually be the horrible affront to community standards that the school claimed it would be. You can’t have it both ways and say “the time isn’t right to change this rule, but we didn’t really follow it… much… anyway.”
So gay people are ok as long as they don’t get uppity?
This thread is answer enough to that question - not a single news source I have seen reported this as anything other than a sensationalized tale of an oppressed youth. Bashing Mississippi and making snap assumptions is popular it seems; why would the school staff or school board think anything they would say would be reported honestly and fairly? As another poster mentioned, I am sure liabilty rules also come into play. This is all my position, btw, it did not discuss media rules of engagement with anyone who was involved.
Actually as I stated before, this had happened in previous years and no one cared. So Constance had no reason to expect problems for her prom.
Sure the rule should be fought, but do you really think a letter and lawsuit the month before the prom makes a valid attempt? This was not a new policy, nor one Constance could have been unaware of as a student there. Why wait until the event had almost occured? Actually, if you read your cite she never asked them to change the rule at all - she just wanted a proclamation for her and her date’s safe passage.
For the record, it isn’t ‘my’ town. I had hoped to help people understand that the situation wasn’t as one sided and Constance, rather than some torch bearer for liberation, was just a teenager whose questionable demands made for good news.
Of course it doesn’t - but as I mentioned before the student had years to fight this rule. Is it so hard to believe she did it more for attention than the actually change anything?
There are limits to the power of government to force social change.
In this case, Ms. McMillen sought to require the school to let her attend prom with her female date. When the school refused, she filed suit. She did not, by the way, win on a claim that she had an Equal Protection or Due Process right to attend. The court that heard her claim said she intended to communicate a message by donning a tuxedo and attending with a female date, and that by canceling the prom, the school improperly restricted her First Amendment right to convey that message.
But the court stopped short of ordering the school to have the prom, primarily because of the representations that parents would conduct an alternate event that was open to all.
And apparently they did, but very few students attended, opting instead for yet a third party or parties.
So… in future years, if the school simply drops “prom” from its list of sponsored events, a similarly-situated student may be out of luck.
Which is… unfortunate.
Yeah, we get it. People who aren’t in the mainstream–gays, blacks, Aboriginals–should just shut up and stop making life difficult for the normies, right.
So, homosexuals should just wait, and be quiet, and things will change. Eventually. Someday. At some point. When uptight, frightened straight people say so. Good things come to those who wait, right? Pat on the head for being a good little gay. A quiet little gay. An obedient little gay. Pat. Pat. Pat.
That’ll work.
Well, I’d say they were bigoted assholes who deserve what they get: being made uncomfortable, being made to look like fools on the wrong side of history, being made fun of, being considered bigoted assholes.
Ha ha! You’ve got gay cooties on your hand now!
No, and if you took that from my posting I am sorry. It would have been a much better move to begin fighting this when she learned about the rule if she did not agree with it. Perhaps at one of the monthly board meetings, or go straight to the the ACLU (or a similar organization) when she entered high school three or four years prior and was notified of it.
Actually, I think the school won’t drop the prom but I do fear it causing a rise in private, alternate events. Which is just as bad if not worse.
That’s what happened. Parks stayed in her seat when a few other black passengers moved:
Anyway, Grave, it’s great that (at least in theory) Constance might have been able to go to the prom with her girlfriend. But the policy is still wrong and she was right to protest it regardless, and those kinds of rules need to come off the books and not just be ignored. Otherwise the leniency could end whenever the current principal leaves or changes his mind, or if the board of education starts putting pressure on the school to stick to the letter of the policy. There’s a reason people say a verbal agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
I think Grave means, what if the white folks moved and gave up their seats. That would have been a good thing to do but the stupid rule remained.
What I understand Grave’s comments to mean: she would have had a much greater chance of sucess if she hadn’t waited until the 11th hour. I think everybody agrees the rule is stupid and should be abolished.
Yes. Because, really, what can she do? The courts won’t order the hosts of a private party to invite her.
If that’s indeed the case, why weren’t the special needs students invited to the party in the boondocks? What about the few other … uhhh, for lack of a better word, “normal” students who attended the decoy country club prom? Were those kids making a stand and supporting Constance, or were they unpopular dorks, dweebs and Aspies shunned from the other party?
As NinetyWt noticed, I agree with your assertion that it should be changed and have not said otherwise. This projection on Constance as some great righter of wrongs is just false; and even if it were truthful she could not have gone about it in a less productive manner. Debating the merits of the school board’s policy is not my intention here, sharing first hand information is.
Exactly, and while it won’t be her that faces the problem the legacy she is leaving for younger students is poor.
Pardon if this seems agressive, but are you really that out of touch with how teenagers work? When kids have a party, they invite the people they want to associate with - wrong as it may be that rarely includes the special needs kids. I’d wager it didn’t include quite a few other social misfits that are just not on the radar as it were. That is why the school holding the prom was important in the first place as it removed the need for invitations.
To quote a teacher - “the few people who showed up were the friends that she still had”. The private proms were mostly planned at the last minute by students (as the post someone sniped from Facebook shows) who really didn’t care about Constance, or what viewers see as a social injustice, or any of the issues the internet has wrapped up into this bruhaha. They wanted a party with their friends as a final hurrah. The only reason Constance wasn’t part of that was her.
The problem is that there were two issues I suspect Constance wanted addressed. She wanted the school officials to treat her desire to date a female exactly as they treated other girls’ desire to date males: as expected, ordinary, and a non-issue. That’s a very reasonable expectation.
She also wanted the school social community, the students, to accept her and her her desire to date a female exactly as they treated other girls’ desire to date males. That’s also a reasonable expectation.
But unfortunately for her, only one of those expectations corresponds to a legal right.
Your view appears to be that she did this just for the hell of it because she is disagreeable or wants attention. I’m not convinced.
She could have raised the issue earlier, but for whatever reason - deciding this was the best time, or not wanting to have to deal with the flack for four years - she didn’t. I don’t think that’s a big deal.
But what would the harm have been in just inviting Constance to the other prom, where the majority of students were? They obviously weren’t trying to avoid a brouhaha–this has caused further talk and news stories. I’m just getting the unpleasant sense that they wanted to avoid her altogether. It seems that it’s fine to be gay as long as you don’t bother anyone else with it. If you try to drag people out of the dark ages by telling them their policy is wrong, they’ll be pissed and punish you for it?
No, I don’t think she did it just because of that, but I think both those factors played into how she did it. The big deal (and this is probably a cultural difference) is that she chose to act in a rash manner with little hope for success. There was a well known tradition of allowing same sex couples all the freedoms mixed sex couples had. She had even been seen expressing affection to her partner with no abnormal action taken against her at school.
If she had no reason to expect a problem, nor any expressed desire to affect procedural change, why would she act the way she did? Again, she was part of the community and knew how they would react to being provoked. Demanding what amounts to a huge change for a small community in a short time over a dance? Not an intelligent way to act, nor a way anyone could expect a good result from.
Still, thank you for taking the time to read what I wrote and at least consider it. That is all I hoped for.
What they were trying to avoid - and did - was outside influences. Photographers, television crews, et al were all present for the prom she attended. The other kids had a night where none of that existed and they could just be themselves again. Remember, avoidance is a primary tool of conflict resolution for teenagers. Constance was the problem to them, and she was avoided. Not her homosexuality - I know of at least one gay couple who attended a different event - but the situation she chose to create.
But it appears she DID want a procedural change.