The Student Non-Discrimination Act
You may have read our entry about the discrimination against high school student Constance McMillen who wanted to attend her high school prom. Her situation got even worse.
Constance wanted to go to her Mississippi high school prom with her girlfriend, but the school refused to allow it. After the ACLU filed a lawsuit on her behalf, a federal judge said the The Itawamba County Agricultural High School could not discriminate against her attending a school-sponsored prom as that violated her First Amendment rights. The school board's response? Rather that let her attend with a female, they cancelled the prom for everyone.
But the fight against Constance and personal freedom got even worse. The judge was assured that she would be allowed to attend a private dance that would serve as the school prom. But the only students who showed up were Constance, her date, and five other students. Two of those students had disabilities. The "real" prom was held somewhere else.
We will respect the wishes of Constance and the ACLU and not focus all of our outrage on the cruelty here. James Esseks, director of the LGBT Project, said "there's nothing she wants more than for these kind of hurtful actions to end for students all across the country." We cannot change what happened to Constance, but we can support the Student Non-Discrimination Act to prevent this happening to future prom-goers.
Esseks said, "The Student Non-Discrimination Act would be the first comprehensive federal prohibition against discrimination in public schools based on a student's sexual orientation or gender identity."
You can help by sending an email in support of the act by going to https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2207&s_src=UNW100001ACT&s_subsrc=100409_const_CAN&JServSessionIdr004=8jp5gu9q75.app224a
Read more at http://www.yppo.com/2010/04/09/constance-mcmillen-fake-prom/
Preprom photo taken by Ken Stokes on May 20, 2005 and is released under the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 license as found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Preprom.jpg
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To see all our entries dealing with the ACLU, click on http://www.loveshade.org/blog-mt/mt-search.fcgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=aclu
To see all our entries dealing with the Student Non-Discrimination Act (including our first entry on Constance McMillen), click on http://www.loveshade.org/blog-mt/mt-search.fcgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=student non-discrimination act
Comments
What can be said other than this is very sad. I hope the act passes and I'll go there now.
Posted by: Sharon MT | April 9, 2010 08:15 PM
You let two girls go to a prom together, what's next? They'll be doing it with ducks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXPcBI4CJc8
Posted by: Paranoid Paul | April 10, 2010 01:10 AM
As one person with many disabilities all I can say is this disgusts me. Count me in
Posted by: Vernon Avaritt | April 12, 2010 02:31 PM
This is a travesty, and it's so sad for those kids. Should we have separate proms for GLBT, the disabled, and people of African, Mexican and Asian descent?
Posted by: TawTew the Naturally Perfumed | April 12, 2010 09:12 PM
That is so cruel! How can people do something like that? I hope the act passes. Schools shouldn't get paid by the government to discriminate!
Posted by: Marie Gilbert | April 13, 2010 10:46 PM
Those girls are lesbians because they haven't met a real man like me. Come over and see me, girls! I'll cure ya!
Posted by: Rev. Bootie | April 14, 2010 06:32 PM
The government should not force schools to promote homosexuality! If students can date one person at a prom, then why not three or four? If this keeps going, next they'll be dating their sisters and their dogs. It's not right in a Christian nation for a Christian to be forced to pay taxes to support an abomination before God.
Posted by: Christian Andy | April 17, 2010 06:02 AM
The law wouldn't promote anything except not discriminating. And why couldn't somebody go to a prom with two people? Really, what's the problem with that? I know a girl who went to a dance with her father. It was fun.
Posted by: Lorien Loveshade | April 20, 2010 02:19 AM
Here's a school that wouldn't let a girl take her brother to her high school prom. But that's because he's 23 so obviously would buy alcohol and get all the young girls drunk and molest them--while the adult chaperones that are everywhere at the prom would be too stupid to notice anything. http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2010/02/25/dnt.teacher.lap.dance.cbc.html#
Posted by: Aarnoldd | April 21, 2010 01:18 AM
Here's a video that shows you how teachers are responsible leaders for our childrens's wholesomeness http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1J-Nf6PUMs
Posted by: Aarnoldd | April 21, 2010 01:24 AM
I don't see anything wrong with the girl wanting to show off her brother at the prom. Do they really think a 23-year-old is more likely to try to get intimate with girls than 17 and 18-year-olds? It must be a long time since these people were in high school. And they think their chaperones won't notice students getting drunk right in front of them?
I think the video of the two teachers lap dancing at a pep rally is funny. It was set up for teachers to do dances to entertain students. They shouldn't have been fired for that.
Posted by: TawTew the Naturally Perfumed | April 23, 2010 03:41 PM
Lesbian ain't normal. Ever take biology? You notice how males and females fit together? They're made for each other. Don't work that way with two girls. And two guys? That ain't right. Some body parts are made for stuff to come out of, not go into.
Posted by: Tom T. Trucker | April 23, 2010 09:18 PM