.
as regular readers know, i don't spend much time on gay-rights issues here--there are lots of bloggers out there who do that kinda shit better [and, frankly, care more] than i do--but constance mcmillen's story caught my attention early, and i've been following it closely.
because i can't help but admire her--not only for mustering the courage to buck the status quo in her backwoods little corner of mississippi, but for the quiet maturity, grace and restraint she's shown throughout what has become a very public spectacle.
brief background for those of you who haven't been paying attention: constance wanted to bring her girlfriend as her date to her prom, and, rather than acceding to her request, her school district ended up cancelling the prom altogether, infuriating everybody and making constance the bad-guy pariah of her high school. the ACLU got involved, tried to force the district to hold an all-inclusive prom anyway, was denied. the parents of the heartbroken prom-deprived kids banded together and vowed to throw a private prom, to which constance and her date were putatively invited.
and this is where it gets interesting.
see, on prom night, constance and her date showed up at the country club as directed--and found, to their surprise, that there were actually two proms that night. from constance's account in the advocate story:
"The one that I went to had seven people there, and everyone went to the other one I wasn’t invited to."
as for constance's prom? again, from the advocate story:
Two students with learning difficulties were among the seven people at the country club event, McMillen recalls.
"They had the time of their lives," McMillen says. "That's the one good thing that came out of this, [these kids] didn't have to worry about people making fun of them [at their prom]."
and that last quote is why you gotta love constance--but here's my favorite quote from the article, and the reason for this post:
Her school principal and teachers served as chaperones, but clearly there wasn't much to keep an eye on.
you get the implication here? everybody was in on this cruel little hoax--every parent, every kid, every school administrator, the principal, every teacher, every country club employee, every employee of the venue where the "real" prom was held--everybody. a perfect conspiracy of hundreds, and not one of 'em broke.
my question: who was on the committee of supposed grown-ups that picked the five other clueless retards and rejects who were deemed sufficiently worthless to join the lesbian and her girlfriend at their private prom?
* * * * *
back when i was in high school, my friends and i did a lot of crazy shit, but i think the thing that allowed us all to have faith in the future was the unspoken but universally-held belief that at some point we'd abandon all the petty, mean-spirited bullshit of youth and morph into responsible, do-the-right-thing adults like our parents and teachers.
shame the kids of itawamba county, mississippi no longer have that illusion to cling to.
1 comment:
Well, this is why you don't live there. Because in some parts of the U.S. of A. they see things very differently than you do.
I am just betting these folks see the ACLU and the government conspiring to force them to accept things so contrary to their deeply held beliefs and values. It is an affront to common decency.
This all may sound persuasive until it is put in the context of racial segregation and this is the same area of the world that talks about "states' rights" with a wink and a nod to racism. At least, so it goes.
But, you know, times change and what was met with massive resistance in the 1960's pretty much is accepted now, however grudgingly. At least, that's on the surface.
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