So yesterday I posted a blog on Queer Oakland about the spat of gay teens insisting that their high school’s allow them to bring same-sex dates to their proms. In Constance McMillen’s case the school board decided to cancel the prom altogether rather than let her bring her girlfriend in order to avoid any ‘distractions’. So let’s parse that for a moment, the Itawamba County school district board had their sensibilities troubled by the fact that a girl wanted to attend a school dance with another girl on her arm while wearing a tux. Oh noes! That would violate all convention and threaten their peachy worldview, so they canceled it. I mean, did they really think that following in the footsteps of their racist forbears who close public pools rather than share them with black people wouldn’t cause a whole shit ton of media attention and ‘distraction’.
In short: Stupid rationalizations are stupid.
This all gave Derrick Martin, a young gay man in Georgia, the idea to petition his school to let him take his boyfriend to his prom. Wisely his principle realized that since their school didn’t have any policies against it that he should be allowed to do so. Unfortunately, the article claims that “because of the media attention, Martin’s parents have kicked him out and the teen is staying with a friend”.
First of all that’s disingenuous. His parents didn’t kick him out because of the ‘media attention’ – they did so cause their son’s a fag and they don’t like that. So rather than love and support their son for standing up for himself they threw him out of their house. The ‘media attention’ had nothing to do with.
Secondly: man that must suck.
