You may or may not have heard about what has recently happened to Constance McMillen. For those who haven’t, she’s an out lesbian who’s graduating from high school this year, and wanted to go to prom. When the school banned her from prom, she sued for the right to attend, so they cancelled the prom. Then the school was legally forced to have a prom, so their response was to throw two proms: one for Constance and her date and a handful of other students (including two kids with learning disabilities – STAY CLASSY, ITAWAMBA COUNTY), and one for everybody else which they kept secret. (Admittedly, the secret prom kind of looks like it sucked, but I think that has more to do with it being Bumfuck Wherever, Missisippi than any sort of guilty.)
It honestly just staggers me that people could be so hateful and petty. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, these shits were lying to her face for what must have been weeks, and for what? Because Constance seems like a pretty awesome person, all things considered. Are these people just trying to confirm everybody’s hunches about what Missisippi is like? Is that the plan? Because it’s fucking working like gangbusters.
I thought for a second that I should be all sanctimonious and write an open letter to Constance about how life’s going to get ten billion times better the moment she gets the fuck out of there and moves somewhere where gays aren’t considered third-class citizens – you know, like Iowa – but then thought better of it, because it’s pretty obvious from all these stories that, as said, she’s an awesome person and she knows pretty well that once she gets the fuck out of there things are going to get better anyway. But it also occurs to me for every Constance out there, there’s got to be a hundred other desperately unhappy gay teenagers, closeted or not, in exactly the same situation as her: having it reinforced, every day of their lives, that they are lesser.
So, to all of them: it’s not your fault. Yes, it is entirely possible to live in a town where everybody else is an asshole. And yes, when you leave, it will get endlessly better in more ways than you could ever believe. If you choose to stay and try and change minds, my heart’s out to you. But if you want to leave and just be happy, then do it; it’ll work out, believe me.
(yes I am still on hiatus shut up)
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I swear, we need to get a few gallons of gasoline and some torches, because that town is long overdue for some real hellfire.
I’m amazed the vile black ooze that must flow though these people’s veins doesn’t bubble out of their eyes on a constant basis. In one fell swoop they went from Dicks to Inhuman Cuntmasters.
When I drive back to Texas from Virginia, I always make sure my bladder is empty and my tank full so I can drive straight through Mississippi without stopping. It’s really that bad.
Why use gasoline when napalm is something that they understand a whole lot better, what with their scorched earth policy toward gays. Also let us give a well earned round of applause and love and hugs and kisses for the Virginia governor who hath proclaimed April shall henceforth be dubbed CONFEDERATE HISTORY MONTH!
I had major issues with your final paragraph, if only because, well, it seems rather absurdly idealistic despite real-world situations and circumstances.
First, what’s not her fault? Her sexuality? Her schoolboard’s idiocy?
Second, where do things get better? Certainly, there are a few major cities to which people who are gay might flee where they might find some acceptance, but overall they are few and quite literally far between, like, thousands of miles far between. I’ve lived in West Hollywood and New York City, both places where homosexuality is not uncommon, but cities in states where men who love men or women who love women can’t marry each other; New York state rejected a gay marriage bill barely five months ago.
I’m not saying it won’t hopefully get better. I’m not saying it’s not getting better.
I’m just saying there are only a few places where it is actually any better to the degree of basic tolerance, and even fewer where gays have equal rights.
My favorite part?
The girls kissing on the “memories” collage.
It’s so unpleasant, it feels like one of Sue’s plans from Glee.
More on what Will wrote, when these kids leave their shitty towns for the big city where it’s “better,”many of them do so before they have the resources or support to do it safely. There is a frighteningly disproportionate number of queer kids in the street youth statistics.
And that’s assuming they make it out at all: there’s also a disproportionate number of queer kids in the teen suicide stats.
Constance is phenomenal, and I really hope her story reaches the youth who need to hear it, so they know that while it IS SHITTY and may stay that way for who the fuck knows how long, there are other people who will have your back, and it is survivable.
Chris, if you get too angry, try this:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/wiesi/miami-shark
It just makes life a whole lot better.
Mississippi has four s’s! Four! I’m not the grammar police but that damn not-really-a-song-but-you-can still-hum-it thing about how to spell that word has been stuck in my head since grade school. Seeing it spelled with a missing s actually hurts me.
Maaaan, the U S of A never stop surprising me.
I mean, i’m from a “Third World” nation of sorts (albeit one of the better ones off), and there’s just not that level of discrimination over here. It just isn’t there (towards gays at least). Sure there’s some sectors that are worse than others, but it’s honestly not “secret prom” bad.
You see, whenever i see those heated debates on the internet over issues like the church, and creationism vs darwinism, or abortion, or gay marriage, where every argument about the other side is not even based on a ridiculous cartoon/straw man of what any person with any kind of sense would really think about the issue, but are based on a ridiculous cartoon/straw man of what no one on their sane minds would ever think about any topic; and then i see those debates are still taken seriously, i usually think “Man, this people on the internet are clearly a breed of crazies of their own, and are absolutely disconnected from anything that could ever really be happening in reality, on any nation of people with brains”
And then i stumble across news like these.
The US should maybe review some of its educational policies. Like, yesterday. Or maybe evacuate the country. That would be a viable option too.
I feel sorry for the learning disabled kids too. They probably have no future, and will be stuck in that shitty town forever.
Yep that’s a lot of sore losers, emphasis on losers, and asshole is a heredity trait.
Oh, but according to one of the students who went to the secret prom, they’re just standing up for themselves, because having their bigotry exposed to international scorn has been just sooooooo lame.
I kid you not.
If the South where to ever get off its ever widening ass and “rise again”, I doubt anyone in the North would stop them. I’m personally of the opinion that Lincoln was wrong and that that you can live in a divided house. I mean we have duplexes now, its not uncommon.
I have a feeling things might go the same way in my town. (I don’t expect they’d go as far as the secret-prom route, but they might.)
One thing I’ve noticed about parts of the Deep South, though. When they get criticised heavily by the rest of the country, especially when inbred-redneck stereotype remarks get thrown around a lot on TV, they tend to harden their position even further. A siege mentality is very common there.
This does not mean, of course, that we should refrain from criticising in situations like this.
I saw that Rachel.
“playing the lesbian card to get what she wants”
And what did she want? simply to attend the prom with her date? What a bunch of scumbags.
This kills me. In 1994 I was unable to go to prom, and gave my tickets to the class lesbians- because back in 94 we had them.
One wore a tux, one wore a dress, and they went to my Tampa, Florida area prom without incident.
16 years later, suddenly it’s a big deal.
Inviting the ‘learning disabled’ students to the prom with Constance was a nice touch. Shun the fags and the retards all at once. No need to have that uncomfortable conversation either.
I will note, that it appears that the “prom” Constance didn’t get to go to had at least a handful, if not more people of color. So about 50 years after brown v. board of education, suddenly the school is at least a little bit racially unified. For Mississippi that’s almost progress.
As an advocate for special needs students at my school, I’m appalled that the adults involved with this debacle knowingly excluded the learning disabled as well as Constance from the “real” prom, although it seems the students with learning disabilities were treated quite well and had a great time. When I think my town is a bad place to be stuck until graduation, all I have to do is take one look at Mississippi and know that I am indeed lucky.
It’s almost as creepy as it is unsurprising. When you get a court order to make people do something, they do the minimum, or try to subvert it in some other way. I feel bad for Constance McMillen, but someone was misleading her if they suggested the new compulsory-gay-friendly prom would be the same as the one she was turned away from.
oookkaayy
figured someone who’s actually from mississippi should chime in here
just remember, that to judge an entire state and it’s people by the actions of some fuck-heads who like to screw over highschool girls is, also, wrong.
it was the mississippi branch of the ACLU that filed the lawsuit for constance. it was a mississippi judge that ruled in her favor.
hold the fuckheads who pulled this accountable but don’t say an entire state sucks when there are good people down here working everyday to try and make it better.
that would be just like me saying the entire state of california sucks because california passed Prop 8.
Hear hear, Pat!…fellow Mississippi native here. I swear folks, we can be normal. These people do not represent us all.
The post mentions leaving ASAP in order to make things better, but to be honest in the years since I left, I’ve come to wish I had stayed to try to make things better there. Part of our (and the South in general’s) problem may be that those of us with differing beliefs/opinions leave so quickly sometimes. My hat’s off to those who decide to stay and fight the good fight to improve both the image and reality of my home state. Hope I can lend a hand someday as well.
Well on the bright side the venue that the party was at is getting lots of free advertising, of sorts. Not that they will be going “Have your special bigot event with us.” on the brochures anytime soon.
From over here we judge the entire USA on this shit.
@Will: “Certainly, there are a few major cities to which people who are gay might flee where they might find some acceptance, but overall they are few and quite literally far between, like, thousands of miles far between.”
Did you miss the state of Iowa, mentioned in the original post? It’s an entire gay-friendly state, isn’t thousands of miles from Mississippi, and as a former resident I can say the cost of living was very manageable.
I am aware that it is wrong and bigoted to say “The USA is full of complete fuckheads, thank God I’ve got the Atlantic Ocean between my family and those clowns.” I am aware that this incedent, and ones like it, are not in the least representative of even one state, let alone the entire country. I am aware that I should remember that dismissing an entire country based on things like this is not fair.
But it’s not easy some days.
We want to feel better about ourselves so we degrade some group that we consider worse off or less valuable than us. By all evidence it appears human nature that only from time to time can anyone overcome.
Gays don’t deserve to go to prom. People form Mississippi are all mindless hicks. People from the South are socially unevolved. People from Canada are all slow. People from the North care more about their house than their kids. Blacks, Jews, Nerds, Lawyers, New Jersey, Polish, Arsenal fans, Kiwis, WoW players… It’s all dumb. But as far as I can tell everyone does it.
It’s good that people are outraged by this ‘above and beyond’ level act of douchery, and hopefully most of the world is better than this, but at least when discussing it try not to fall into the exact same behavior that you’re playing the Holier Than Thou card against. Maybe you wouldn’t go to the lengths that these cocks did, but clearly you still cling to your own stereotypes.
FWIW, Rachel, the little bitch had to backpedal like a trick unicyclist.
Dear Itawamba County high school seniors and their parents:
It isn’t about her being openly gay.
It’s about the way you openly express your hatred of her being openly gay.
Don’t bitch about her using the ‘lesbian card’ to ‘get what she wants’ while you all use your ‘we’re bigots but we don’t want to be publicly known as bigots card’ to pull off juvenile antics like throwing a fake prom like you’re all Sneetches on Beaches with stars upon thars.
Personal experience here: Most of the kids my high school class went to prom. Good-sized school, I’d say about 300 seniors and their dates. I didn’t go because I didn’t feel right (mom kept pushing me to get a date, go to prom, have fun, so I asked a girl out but it felt wrong, so I canceled out (she was a sophomore, wasn’t too thrilled)), but hey that was me. You wanna know something? I guarantee you there were people going to that prom who hated each other, who weren’t going to be thrilled that certain individuals who ‘didn’t belong’ would show. But you know what? THEY KEPT IT TO THEMSELVES AND STILL HAD A GOOD TIME. No politics. No social disagreements. No riots. No race relation or gender relation conflicts.
But you all? NOOOOOOOOO. You all had to go public with your hatreds and bigotry. And now you’re all defensive and whiny that people are yelling at you about your hatreds and bigotry. TOO BAD. You deserve the bad press you’re getting now and deserve to get 20 years from now.
And I’m not at all surprised that you all will be giggling about this for the rest of your lives.
I wonder: are you idiots going to host separate 20-year high school reunions in 2030?
Hi, Brandi. My inner cynic says her backpedaling isn’t worth all that much because I don’t think she’s suddenly seen the error of her ways. She said that she and the rest of the secret promgoers would “suffer the consequences,” and then she learned that the consequences included people from all across the country sharing their opinion of their actions.
The pettiest part of me says that karma’s a bitch. The rest of me wonders if Lindsey Begleg has recognized that ostracizing the Other is wrong because we’re all Other to somebody … but based on my own high school memories, I suspect all she’s “learned” is that the world outside of Itawamba County is full of Others, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she stays deep in her comfort zone for years to come. That’s much easier than growing up.
Have faith Phil. Some of us are working to make it better.
In a way what chills me even more than the school board’s decision to behave like this was that the other students accepted it. That all of them were really willing to go along with this scheme to deceive their own. I had to check that the date wasn’t the 1st and even now, I have difficulty believing that NONE of these students possessed the inkling of solidarity required to alert those students who were being deceived.
Oh sweet Christ, that aqua faux-satin polyester waistcoat! And the matching ballgown!
@Will: Actually, pretty-gay-friendly Toronto (Canada) is only 978 miles from Jackson, Mississippi (I picked this as it was the capital). Under a thousand and definitely not “thousands” of miles.
Compare this to the fact that Vancouver, which is IN THE SAME COUNTRY as Toronto, is more than 2000 miles away.
@Will: Also, not that I don’t support gay rights, but having the right to marry and having the right to just walk down the street together — or attend high school prom together — are different kettles of fish. I don’t think they SHOULD be, but they are. The “controversy” surrounding both have social roots, but one is definitely infinitely more political than the other. It’s also another fight.
I’m not sure you’re doing your hiatus right. Please keep doing it wrong, though, because I’m extra bored.
@Heksefatter. I’m afraid that the solidarity we’ve seen reported so far was of the straight (and narrow minded) kids versus Constance, her girlfriend, the learning-disabled kids, and other outcasts. In a larger sense, it’s also the solidarity of the Cool Kids against the world. We can see an example of that in Lindsey Begley’s comment where she talks about “it had everything to do with proving we weren’t going to let her and the ACLU steamroll us into doing what Constance wanted.”
That’s the solidarity at work here. Us versus Them.
Hi, Brandi. My inner cynic says her backpedaling isn’t worth all that much because I don’t think she’s suddenly seen the error of her ways.
Oh, I don’t think it is either, but it made me smile mirthlessly to watch her be all “My opinions don’t reflect that of the high school! Really, I swear!”
@Brandi: Heh. I can sympathize. But I’m trying to be a little less cynical than I was when I first read her lame justification for lying and sneaking around. A lot of the sort of thing Lindsey’s been writing (or has been quoted as saying on the school’s official news website) is the kind of thing you can grow out of, and I hope she does. I hope this whole experience becomes a teachable moment for her and that she becomes a better person for it. A community’s attitudes change because enough individuals change, so if Fulton is to shed its title of “most hateful town in America,” students like Lindsey will have to show that they’re working to outgrow their bigotry and hypocrisy.
This is the same school that suspended a transgender student, by the way.
A suspended student who the lesbian student stood up for. (I notice the trans student uses the male pronoun for himself; formally speaking, does that make him transgender or a transvestite?)
Also, rich creamy schadenfreude from this blog.
Yet more proof that the line between real life and Disney movies is blurring.
FWIW, Ellen DeGeneres has given Constance a $30,000 scholarship and had her on TV. The townspeople got jealous and insanely pissed that she didn’t play her proper role as victim. Of course, this makes their subsequent behavior even worse because, indeed, they have not shame.
http://www.shewired.com/Article.cfm?ID=24658
Taste the schadenfreude!
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/15769/ms-heterosonly-prom-attendees-lesson-from-the-blend-about-thinking-before-posting-on-facebook
Stupid, stupid children.
Oops, sorry about the redundant Pam’s House Blend post. Got myself accidentally flagged as spam last night trying to post two links.
Dan wrote:
“Gays don’t deserve to go to prom. People form Mississippi are all mindless hicks … at least when discussing it try not to fall into the exact same behavior that you’re playing the Holier Than Thou card against. Maybe you wouldn’t go to the lengths that these cocks did, but clearly you still cling to your own stereotypes.”
It’s not the exact same behaviour.
Deciding this gay person can’t go to prom because gay people don’t deserve to go to prom has no justification, because there is nothing about this person specifically or gay people generally that offers a cause for that discrimination.
On the other hand, deciding that these parents, students, and school board members deserve our condemnation as a bunch of bigoted, discriminatory, lying crapweasels *is* justified, because their words and actions have repeatedly and at length demonstrated them to be a bunch of bigoted, discriminatory, lying crapweasels.
Does that make every individual in Mississippi a douche bag? No, and nobody is suggesting that. However, the entire county has acted in concert to enact this discrimination, and the entire county believes that such behaviour is perfectly reasonable.
It’s not a few individuals, it’s the whole county, which is therefore indicative of an embedded culture that regards societal discrimination as acceptable. Is everyone in Mississippi a mindless hick? No. If you were gay, would you move to Mississippi? I doubt it.
I wait with baited breath the hear about the disciplinary actions taken against the adults in this crazy scheme.
Haha, look at this. It’s a list of horrible bigots!
http://itawambabigots.tumblr.com/
$10 says at least one kid who attended the “hetero only” prom comes out to the media within a year of graduating and leaving the community.
“Then the school was legally forced to have a prom”
As I understand it, the school wasn’t legally forced to have a prom; the judge explicitly refused the ACLU’s request to do so.
What did happen was a submission to the court that some sort of dance would be held, with it understood that she could attend.
What I thought was pretty great about this story was that for all those kids who are gay or handicapped or different or just made to feel like they’re not as good as everybody else, this shows that if you’re true to yourself, and take a stand against bullies and petty-minded people, and refuse to give an inch no matter what… you will probably still lose. But you just might, in losing, get those people to make themselves look like total, total assholes, in front of basically the entire country, and in a few wonderful instances, on the internet, under their facebook names.
Which I mean, I’ll take that over winning any day.