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No, I'm not. The fact that the school had an existing policy against same-sex couples attending the prom indicates that there was homophobic tension in the community.
I hate comparisons of gay rights to civil rights but. . . . what about if they had to call out the national guard to permit some to attend school due to tensions?
One is unlikely to see me blather on re: gay rights but this particular issue strikes me as more a personal right of expression than one of sexual orientation. Given that sexual activity is entirely inappropriate at a prom her orientation is irrelevent. Determining who can walk in the door with what reasonable clothing is a right of expression -- a first amendment right that I do feel strongly about. Here's to the ACLU and Constance's fight for her right of expression!
I hate comparisons of gay rights to civil rights but. . . . what about if they had to call out the national guard to permit some to attend school due to tensions?
One is unlikely to see me blather on re: gay rights but this particular issue strikes me as more a personal right of expression than one of sexual orientation. Given that sexual activity is entirely inappropriate at a prom her orientation is irrelevent. Determining who can walk in the door with what reasonable clothing is a right of expression -- a first amendment right that I do feel strongly about. Here's to the ACLU and Constance's fight for her right of expression!
I don't disagree with you. I support this girl 100%.
My only addition to this thread has been to try to expand how people are looking at the school board members. While bigots they may be, I don't know them, and I don't think any of the other posters do, either. It seems to me that we live in a society where we don't sentence murderers without a trial, but the court of public opinion condemns people on altogether too little evidence. I was just trying to make people see that there were other perspectives, and maybe get them to consider that the school board members might have been thinking about other issues.
I don't disagree with you. I support this girl 100%.
My only addition to this thread has been to try to expand how people are looking at the school board members. While bigots they may be, I don't know them, and I don't think any of the other posters do, either. It seems to me that we live in a society where we don't sentence murderers without a trial, but the court of public opinion condemns people on altogether too little evidence. I was just trying to make people see that there were other perspectives, and maybe get them to consider that the school board members might have been thinking about other issues.
That's not my argument. My argument is simply that I don't know the people on the school board in this community. That as someone who has planned public events, I know that there are many considerations that go into it. And that since I don't know the people involved, and they were planning a large public event, that it's just as fair to think that they were considering other issues besides their bigotry as to not think it. Since so many of you are condemning people you don't know, I thought it worthwhile to interject the possibility that they weren't just all bigots. That the world isn't just black and white. That no one is 100% pure and good, and no one is 100% pure and evil.
That was in fact your argument. You said it’s not the school’s responsibility to rule based on probability of an event from occurring but only the possibility. I can appreciate the need to be objective but objectivity means we make judgments based on evidence and probability. We do know the school has a policy that requires opposite gender partners to attend. We do know the school has a policy that denies females from wearing a tuxedo. We do know the school has gotten into trouble in the past for instituting readings of the Bible. We do know that no reported threats to riot or boycott the prom have been reported. These facts make it much more likely their decision was based on discrimination than concern for students' safety, yet your personal experience with organizing events somehow takes precedence over the facts in determining their motives?
The intent does matter. Companies are allowed to fire people. They are not allowed to fire people based on their sexual orientation. Schools don't have to offer prom. They are not allowed to deny prom to prevent a gay student from attending hence the reason the ACLU of Mississippi filed a suit against the school district on behalf of the student.
The school can say "no more proms forever" and that basically clears any discrimination from the situation. Their INTENT may be not to let homosexuals go, and it's a sad, silly reason, but the result doesn't care. We don't need to figure out why.. that's up to the student body and community as a whole to address. Either get on board or just not put themselves in a position to have to deal with the controversy, and that's the path they took. You can't really push this kind of thing on people who aren't willing to accept it (you really can't even though you think you should be able to) so this is their only solution for now. Eventually new people will look at the situation and think "this is stupid" and it won't be a controversy anymore.
It's sort of like people who don't want to rent a room to homosexuals or blacks or asians...one way around it is to not rent the room at all. You may not like that but you can't force them to rent a room just to advance the anti-discrimination position.
I saw a discussion where their were other incidents like this that cancelled a prom and suit etc. What happened is a private prom in many cases was held and guest invited. most had to do with dress code. they said that was what was liely here and was in the works.Many of these will proably end school funded proms.
This is some of the most overblown garbage I have read about in a while!!!
Yahoo! News has over 50k comments on it in the last 3 days!!!!
This chick just wanted some mega attention and so did her family!!!
She couldn't get a (male) date to the prom and so she took her spite out on the school!!!
That and she thinks the whole Emo/Goth/Lesbian chic thing made her cool!!!!
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but this particular issue strikes me as more a personal right of expression than one of sexual orientation. Given that sexual activity is entirely inappropriate at a prom her orientation is irrelevent. Determining who can walk in the door with what reasonable clothing is a right of expression -- a first amendment right that I do feel strongly about. Here's to the ACLU and Constance's fight for her right of expression!
