Closeted prom

After weeks of being in the news for wanting to attend prom with her girlfriend, Constance McMillen finally saw the truth of her community emerge as they celebrated a secret prom while she, her date and five other students were sent to a “fake prom” at a local country club in Fulton, Miss.

Despite a judge’s preliminary ruling that it was a violation of her rights to be barred from her high school prom, McMillen and a few other classmates were denied invitations to Itawamba Agricultural High School’s “real” private prom organized by local parents, not the school itself.

Although the school did technically follow the court’s ruling in that it did not bar McMillen from prom, the organization of an opposition to these two young women by “adults” is disgraceful. 

All of this disgusting discrimination leaves me with a few thoughts for the “adults” in Fulton:  

Why can a young woman not bring her girlfriend to her prom?

Because it makes you uncomfortable that two girls are dancing together?

Have you ever been to a high school dance?

Let me help you out. These dances can easily be summed up as follows: guys in disheveled shirts distantly shake their hips with feet firmly planted while girls with low-cut tops grind provocatively against each other, with both sexes just waiting for the lights to signal them out to their cars for a quickie before the after-prom, where they will probably drink too much and finish the night with a happy ending they will not remember the next day.

And you think two lesbians will topple the sacred seductive dance of a high school promenade? 

Will they really cause a greater immoral overflow, in your mind, than what is already busting out of bras and beer cups in this sham of a tradition?

How can you expect your children to move forward in the world when your eyes are only turned away from the times in which we are living?

Do not attempt to take the moral high ground in your denial of a high school tradition, no matter how ridiculous it may be, while your own children will undoubtedly follow in the sexualized style of proms past. 

Your actions are both deceptive and disgusting, not only to the seven secluded members of your children’s high school class, but to a nation that is looking forward to a day when sexual orientation will be seen as an essential piece of a person, not an attention-grabbing choice.

Your choice to ostracize is one that has affected the hearts of millions. Do not expect acceptance of your hate.


E-mail: schammoo@indiana.edu