Other than mine, of course.
Don’t get me started on all those black people complaining about every little thing like their bus seat. Personally I think that whole slavery thing was WAY overblown – after all they got free food and housing and it didn’t cost Uncle Sam one thin dime!.
They should be lucky we’re not going after them for back income taxes. That room and board is ALL taxable.
Yeah! Where are MY reparations for that???
Only two things I hate in this world: Racism and ungrateful blacks.
So, if she’d started asking for a change to the policy months ago, how precisely would this have played out differently? Why do you think the administration’s reaction would have been any different if she’d asked back in September? Why do you think, “Prom canceled on account of lesbian” would have got less media play months ago, then it does now?
For a start, there’s more chance for the principal or the PTA to consider the issue and quietly get it resolved when no-one’s looking.
There’s an (apocryphal) story about an English Town Clerk, who (back in the days when divorce required an Act of Parliament and was therefore effectively unavailable to “commoners”) was stuck in an unhappy marriage with a woman he didn’t like, drafted legislation relating to some mundane aspect of the town’s running which needed to go before Parliament (funding for municipal plumbing expansion or something like that) and took the opportunity to insert a clause which said something like “Section 47(h)(1) The Marriage Of The Town Clerk Of Little Dunny On The Woad Is Hereby Dissolved”. Because no-one was paying attention to such a mundane piece of legislation, it was passed and the Town Clerk got his divorce and there wasn’t anything his now ex-wife could do about it.
The principal (or chair of the relevant committee), for example, could have waited until there was a PTA meeting (or whoever decides these things) and simply slipped an amendment nullifying the “no same sex partners and no cross-dressing” clauses of the formal rules. In the event anyone noticed, the principal can point out that there will be an ungodly shitstorm if the policy isn’t amended, and there’s some time for people to go and think it over and rationally realise the consequences of not amending the policy. But a week out from the event, there’s no way anything productive is going to get done. People- especially in rural areas- just don’t work like that.
Secondly, the media have incredibly short attention spans. If she’d started her protest months ago, the media attention would have well and truly died down by the time the formal rolled around, meaning the other students could enjoy it in peace. The school would have changed the policy as a result of the negative media attention (since it would be fairly straightforward to do), and Constance would have gotten what she wanted without ruining or causing un-necessary drama at an important event for all the other senior students at her school.
No-one is saying she shouldn’t be treated equally. What is being said is that she shouldn’t be waiting until the last possible minute to complain about the unequal treatment, knowing full well that the community won’t give her the answer she wants and allowing her to unleash the media frenzy on the town.
That’s so good I don’t have a comeback for it. 
No, instead you’re arguing that because she didn’t bring it up earlier, she shouldn’t bring it up now.
We’re all in agreement that she should have brought it up earlier. But it’d be even worse if she didn’t bring it up at all. The point is, the fact that she should have brought it up earlier is unimportant. Yes, it would have been more effective, but who cares?
You should be blaming the community and the school for cancelling the prom- not Constance.
Another fan!
I would have done the same thing in the circumstances, if I was the principal. Someone wants something done on short notice that I personally can’t make happen, and the result of non-compliance is a media circus? I’d call the whole thing off too.
My point is, had she raised the issue months ago, the formal likely wouldn’t have been cancelled because the issue would have been dealt with and everyone would have moved on.
lol
So you keep saying. This fails to address why she shouldn’t have brought it up now, even if she did drag her heels then.
Because there was nothing anyone could realistically do about it a week out from the event?
If you want to run for Parliament (at least in Australia), you can’t decide to put your name on the ballot paper a week out from the election and then throw a wobbly when the electoral commission says “Nope, sorry, you should have done this a month ago”. Things just don’t work that way.
The problem with your scenario is that it depends on the principal and school board being decent, practical, principled people who will recognize the smart thing to do and take care of it. But if that were the case, then they wouldn’t have had this rule in the first place.
Also, let’s keep in mind the sequence of events here:
Student: I want you to change this policy.
School: No.
Student: I’ll sue!
School: Fuck it! Prom’s canceled!
The Media: Holy shit! Prom canceled to spite lesbian student!
There’s no reason to expect this chain of events to have played out any differently if she’d made the request earlier. Maybe over a longer time span, but there’s no reason to expect the school board to be any more flexible over their own rules if given a few months to think about. The rule had been in the books for years: they’d had plenty of time to reconsider it on their own.
And, of course, this is all assuming that Constance felt the same way about the school administration at the beginning of the year that she did by the time prom rolled around. I notice no one on your side of the fence has addressed the story of the student who was expelled for wearing gender-inappropriate clothes to school earlier in the year. You don’t think that’s a valid excuse for a gay student to rethink how much trust she’s going to put in the administrations’ under-the-table promise to look the other way when same-sex couples show up at the prom?
Tough shit. When you finally grow the balls to say something about an injustice, you fight it all the time.
The last time I tried to stand up against injustice, I ended up in hospital. I’ll thank you to retract the personal insult. And that’s all I’m saying on the matter.
It wasn’t a personal insult. I was referring to Constance getting the guts to say something about it. And that’s all I’m saying on the matter.
Yes, good times for the majority always trump ending discrimination. Honestly, who do these upstart minorities think that they are?
If you don’t understand what’s wrong with that assertion, I propose that you’re on the wrong side of history.
Then it’s a good thing she first approached the principal about the matter in December for an event that occurred in April. Not a week prior, but more than three months prior. And continued to agitate against the bigoted, heteronormative and gender-policing rules at the school when they were unjustly used against her friend Juin in January/February.
That’s not how things work here. PTAs, to begin with, are voluntary organizations of parents and teachers with no regulatory authority at all. These things come from school boards which are elected bodies. And they happen at school board meetings, which are open to, and routinely attended by, the public. The board decisions are public, and open to public comment. Even* if* everyone on the school board was going to simply say “oh sure, we’re going to allow this, no problem Constance, have fun with your lesbian girlfriend” which they weren’t, it wasn’t going to happen without a process which the principal wouldn’t even consider. There was no way in heaven or hell that this rule was going to be changed quietly. No matter what the town clerk of Dunny on the Way did to sneak his divorce.
(bolding mine)
Why should we be catering to these backwards people by doing things quietly, trying not to offend their delicate (and usually religious) sensibilities. We’ve been in the 21st century for a whole decade, if they’ve chosen not to keep up then (as far as I’m concerned) they should be dragged kicking and screaming into modern times.
There was nothing stopping the principal (or school board, or whoever actually decides these things) from allowing her to go the prom if they thought the rule was unfair, all they had to do was write a note for her, even if it took a bit longer to change the rule officially. But as usual they were too worried about the community reaction to do what was right for the person who was supposed to be in their care. Instead they stuck to their rules and ruined things for everyone, then tried to make her look like the bad guy (girl:confused:).
Martini Enfield, you seem to be of the opinion that people should fight discrimination, but not in any way that annoys or inconveniences the people doing the discriminating. Is that correct, or have I missed some other reason why you think what she did was wrong?
(and re-reading tumbledowns last post it seems she’s been trying to get the rule changed for 5 months, how long exactly should she wait?)
Plus, doing it during an inconvenient time has the advantage of making them take notice. If more people feel the way that Martini feels–that the group being happier is more important than making sure all individuals have rights that are respected–then maybe these people need a very loud and rude wake up call.