Brava, Pam!

NOthere will be no apology forthcoming. And, frankly, I’m glad these photos will be around forever. Serves them right, though it comes nowhere close to making up for what they did to Constance and the other kids. Karma isn’t through with these pissants yet.

Stupid, Stupid, StupidI do hope that in the future she’ll have some interviews and that these pictures will figure in her bigoted behind not getting the job.    

GOOOOOOOOOO PAM!!!!
It’s time these Future Facists of America got a biology lesson:
Your species is called Bigotatus Ignoramus.

AhhhhNice to see somebody getting a little of the comeuppance they assuredly deserve.
Not an exactly relevant quote, but Holly, “You do the crime, you serve the time”.
You chose to attend, what many people consider a reprehensible event, and then posted pictures of it in a well-defined public space.  
Sucks to be you.  Terrible when you can’t hide, isn’t it?

It all depends…I think this public exposure of their formerly private pettiness at least means MAYBE they’re express remorse.  And likely only after they experience the inevitable backlash.
For some of them, however, who wish to remain nematodes in the mud puddle that is small down Mississippi and imagine themselves to be bluefin tuna in the Atlantic, they will likely find other small minded types who will commiserate with them, share cheap beer, and maybe even help provide employment down at the local sack-o-suds.  They will then at that point bitch and moan about “Yankees”, gays, blacks, and other imaginary hobgoblins who are “keeping them down” and preventing the economy of their illustrious hell hole (pardon me, “state”) from taking wing as gaawd really intends it to be, amen…  

Ha!I love you, Pam.

Second that!Brilliant reply, Pam!
I’ve only had one person email me and demand that I remove his photo from my blog. It was (of all people) climate denier David Deming who had made some vulgar comments about a female student’s genitalia – and I was writing about that. Anyway, in the email he said he owned the copyright to the photo, a standard university mug shot. I was rather new to blogging at the time and so I removed the photo (but not the post). These days I would just tell him to bite me. We live and learn.  

Nicely doneThank you for saying what I’ve been wanting to say.
And no, there will be no apology: expect instead a threatening letter from a lawyer known to his friends as Bubba. And do not expect this incident to bite any of the perpetrators in the rear, either, as few (if any) will ever get anywhere outside of their narrow-minded, bigoted culture.

These kids need to learn something.Fun and games are temporary; the evidence of your stupidity on the internet is forever.
Upping the ante by being churlish after you’ve been caught only draws more attention.  Haven’t any of these trogs heard of the wayback machine or the web archive?

Thank you PamThanks for taking a stand and leaving the pictures up for everyone to see.  

You’re a Goddess, Pam!That was a great reply!
Why is it that these people feel they have free reign to hurt and humiliate others yet get hurt and offended when those they’ve kicked fight back?
You know what I say to them…tough shit, kids. These punks and their illiterate parents didn’t seem to think anything of sitting their hick town in the middle of controversy at the expense of a young girl’s happiness, so you know what, you get what you give.
They’ll never learn anything from this, just like the little rednecks I grew up with never learned anything either, because they’ll never leave that rathole of a town. Most of them will find out over the summer that they got knocked up prom night and end up vying for a part-time job at the local McDonald’s, while Constance is off at college becoming one of the many well-educated, well-rounded young gay leaders of this next generation.
So…piss on ‘em and their delicate constitutions.  

the people really responsibleAre the parents who clearly do not monitor or explain the downsides of public profiles and social media to their children. Holly and her friends expose themselves to more than derision, they are crapping away their future with careless online behavior that comes with being uninformed themselves, and parents who are either too ignorant or too unconcerned about the dangers of social media use by their kids.
If she’s 17, Holly’s parents are the ones responsible. If Holly’s 18, she’s an adult and responsible for her own behavior online.  

Or, in the vernacular“Crackertrash”

no, no i don’t.“Do you think there will be any apology to the students who were sent to the fake prom?”
that said, don’t be surprised if you receive a letter from some nimrod attorney, threatning legal action, if you continue to refuse to remove them. should that occur, tell him/her to go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, you’ll happily see his/her ass in court. also, inquire as to whether or not his/her malpractice insurance premiums are up to date. when you sue him/her and (presumably)young holly, you’ll want to make sure someone has the means to pay the judgement.
that should be the last you’ll hear about it, unless she hired the world’s stupidest lawyer.

Take them down?Hell no.  Bravo Pam.  As a matter of fact I vote you make them a permanent fixture on a sidebar with the heading “The faces of bigotry, ignorance, and evil”.
O’ wait that would be cruel and I guess we should “turn the other cheek”.  Hmm…O Hell No again.  They live in the Old Testament so we can too.  And I say “eye for an eye”!  

Thank you Pam!You brought a big smile and large pleasurable laugh to what was a craptacular day.  

there’s no need for a nimrod lawyerAll she has to do is get an apology out there. It costs zero time, money and effort to simply rejoin the civil human race.

Uh, Holly. As far as leaving your Facebook account unlockedI think you have experienced a PEBKAC error = Problem exists between keyboard and chair.
Just sayin’

own it, bigotproud of who they are in private, ashamed when the whole world figures it out.  SO typical.  

another suggestionnext time, make sure you have your white hoods on.  

ClarificationYou do have a right to publish, but that right is based on a fair use exemption from copyright for the purpose of legitimate reporting of news. That right has nothing to do with what their privacy settings are–that only affects how easy it was for someone to get access to them.

but the larger issue is the lack of informationAbout protecting her privacy online, and that it’s her responsibility. She made her profile and content public either because 1) she has no problem with her life as an open book or 2) she ignored  reading her options for privacy in FB or 3) she found out that a public profile can backfire on you when your beliefs and actions aren’t particularly popular.
On the issue of fair use based on news reporting, that is indeed correct.

I think you should reconsiderI thing you should absolutely take the pictures down and issue a public apology, just as soon as Holly and her friends hop in their time machine and go back and welcome Constance, her date, and the other kids to the party, with explicit invitations and an apology at the event.
Or better yet, go a little further back in the time machine and stand up and protest the school’s exclusionary policies before the school-sponsored prom was cancelled in the first place.
The damage that she and her friends have done is permanent and irrevocable. Even a “golly, sorry, didn’t know you’d feel so bad” isn’t going to give Constance the prom she had every right to in the first place.
Until she gets that time machine, the photos should stay up. With the update containing the (unlikely) apology she might issue later, but they should stay up.
Good rule of thumb: If you don’t want to be exposed as a bigot on a national stage, don’t behave like a bigot while the country is watching. And for goodness sake, don’t post pictures.

Forward the Pictures and Story to RachelI say forward the pictures and story to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. She will definitely give them the much needed PR that they are seeking. This way the rest of the world can see the bigots that live in Fulton, MS.

Well done! Just one teeny-tiny thing…“Sadly, too many young people don’t think before they publicly post photos or messages that they may later regret.”
Scratch the word “young.”
In the course of researching Prop H8 (and all other anti-gay initiative) donors, I am taken to many, many Mormon Mommy blogs (yes, I know, but I read those barf-making things so you don’t have to), and even I am stunned by the number of “mommies” who have posted photo after photo of themselves, their friends, and (worst of all) their children waving anti-gay signs on street corners, great, big smiles on their faces (and often captioned, “The Yes On 8 rally was AWESOME! We had so much FUN!”).
I am often reminded of newspaper photos of the infamous St. James Park (San Jose, CA) lynching of the two suspected kidnappers of young Brooke Hart in 1933. My mother (a child at the time) can identify a few faces in the photos — a local police officer, several businessmen…
This is what I think of when I see photos of the Yes On 8 sign wavers — and now when I see photos of the Mississippi high school bigots.
And I think: Someday, these photos will appear in history books, perhaps in a timeline beginning with etchings of witch burnings.
May those ecstatic smiles one day turn to expressions of red-faced shame and utter humiliation.
Sadly, however, it will likely be only the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of all these bigots who suffer any shame at all.

Near-term problems as wellAs Pam notes, both colleges and future employers will see these pictures, and the postings on Facebook that demonstrate the bigotry of Holly and her friends. Just as importantly, so will potential college classmates, which is going to be a problem for any of these kids who are planning on attending a school with a conscience.
When I was a student in the mid-80s, apartheid was THE big progressive human rights issue of the day. My liberal, New England college had a lot of discussions/protests/demands for divestment, etc. A white, rich South African student chose to attend the school, in my junior year. He was hounded from the place by October. The other students were either outwardly hostile, or refused to have anything to do with him.
Now, apartheid was not this kid’s fault, but he and his parents simply did not realize that there would be animosity against those benefitting from the system. I can only imagine the response of today’s more progressive students to one of the “Fulton bigots.”  

ROTFLMAO!!!

Holly reminds me a lot of this Lindsey Bagely who wrote to queerty.comIt turns out they didn’ty trick Constance cuz she’s lesbian but because she’s a brat…no word why they also did their stunt to the disabled kids too.
  http://www.queerty.com/constan…
Then this deep thinker sends a follow up letter, which could be summarized with  disregard previous letter….they really should keep their mouths shut, once you’re in a hole quit digging.

Nicely done, PamI really enjoyed reading that.  Funny that these children from good Christian homes are reluctant to be seen by the public as they demonstrate good family values.  I thought Christians were supposed to be salt and light to the world, so why not celebrate the distribution of the photos?
BTW, no one will apologize for at least a decade or two.  And any apology that came now would be forced and completely meaningless.

I had to chuckle at Pam in MOM-modeGiving Holly a lesson in internet 1-001….scarey lack of privacy in the small print…LOL!

My Congratulations AlsoPlease allow me to add my congratulations to those of the others who have posted here.  I was especially impressed with the kindness and openness you showed in your response to her letter, using her bigotry and its consequences as a teachable moment.  Truly you are a class act.

I’m potentially disturbed by your storyThis is off topic because I tend to agree with what Pam has done.
Was the student you describe in your story defending apartheid? I’m a white South African and unless he was I find your the actions of the students in your college to be deplorable. You’re right that the kid had nothing to do with it. Furthermore a significant number of whites in the country were opposed to the apartheid system, though not a majority. I have white friends who in the 1980s were involved in campus activism in SA who had their families’ homes ransacked by the state police and who were threatened and sometimes more than threatened with physical harm. There were others who were more passive in their opposition, but who were nonetheless certainly not supportive of the Nationalist regime. Most of the kids who attended colleges overseas would have probably fit this description. However you were working within a police state where resistance carried a heavy personal cost not everyone was willing to make. Many whites and blacks left or sent their children abroad in the hope that they could escape the regime and its laws.
I was 12 when Mandela was released so while I had no choice in the matter either I had by then (and to this day continue to) benefit from being born white in South Africa. But so does every white kid born in America today benefit from their station of birth. and every American kid is a beneficiary of the global apartheid we have relative to countries like Zambia or Iraq. should we harass them too? At a young age recognized the pervision of the apartheid system and in my teen years was a vocal but not active supporter of the ANC (Mandela was elected president when I was 16) a position that came at some cost but more reward. (Sadly, the ANC is badly mismanaging the country today and a real opposition movement is needed to save SA from a similar path to the one Zimbabwe has travelled.)  
Ironically, the sanctions and divestment did severe harm to the SA economy which while having very little effect on the living standards of whites in the country. The damage done is a legacy the country continues to deal with today, and IMO did more harm than good.
Your fellow students showed incredible bigotry to this student if you judged him soley on the circumstances of his national origin and not his actions or stated beliefs.  

exactly. and BTW, check out what these good, xtian children were doing so far removed from teh gay menacehttp://lezgetreal.com/?p=30833

support for constancei keep wondering where were constance’s friends and supporters.  we have only heard from her dad and he doesn’t approve of gayness because he is a christian [his words].  the girlfriend didn’t attend the faux prom because her parents didn’t want the media attention for their daughter.  it doesn’t look to me like constance has any adults that are 100% supportive and accepting of her,  not a teacher, parent, minister, counsellor, relative.  other than out of towners, famous folk, the general public, i haven’t heard any real support for this young lady so that she will feel NORMAL.  this town was mentally and publically cruel to this young lady and they have no idea the sting of rejection they’ve inflicted.  we do though.  i would suggest that we haunt those kids ‘virtually’ so that constance can get through the last days of high school without those ugly beginner bigots getting away with harassing her as they they have already begun to do.  let the gay community step in financially, legally, and peacefully and document every single move the kids and parents of these kids do.  watch and document and then legally and civilly hold them accountable.  use the rules.  we can monitor and record and document these unrepentant jerks and make sure that any employer and school admissions office can find their names next to this incident.  welcome to adulthood from the former victims of high school bullies.  

I didn’t know himBut from what I remember, his family was not just supportive of apartheid, they were economically benefitting from it (and were very well-off). In addition, he expressed significant discomfort with students who were non-white.
My larger point, though, is that Holly and her friends are clearly part of the bigotry in this case and any rejection by future peers would be based on their own actions.  

I’ve been worried about Constance McMillen too. I just wrote to ACLU about it.I’ve been following this story on blogs and reading comments and facebook pages for the past two days. There are dozens of FB posts and comments on news blogs attacking this 18 year old high school student. All day long I have been wondering what today is like for Constance. Is she in school? Is there a single adult or student in her entire high school who cares about her safety and feelings at all? I see no evidence of it. In all the posts from parents and students telling “their side” from Fulton and Itawamba High School, the same words are used over and over again -
“Constance is a drama queen who brought this on herself by selfishly demanding special rights.”
“Nobody cares that Constance is gay – it’s just that she ruined their entire senior year to get attention. And besides, being gay is against God’s law.”
“Nobody denied anybody’s rights. They had a perfect right to hold a private party outside Fulton. Constance got her prom and the rest of the high school chose to go to the private party.”
“Nobody intended to exclude the learning disabled kids. Nobody talks to them anyway, but they could have come if they wanted.”
“lol. Fatty got rickrolled” (that last one is an exact quote.)
These are the words of psychopaths. They are the same words that were used to exclude black people from schools and public facilities until the courts forced people to obey the U.S. Constitution. And even then, the bigots ran and hid in “private” institutions.
It is no coincidence that there is a national movement to privatize public schools. It is no coincidence that the governor of Virginia is praising the Confederate States of America. There are a lot of people in the U.S. who simply don’t believe in equal rights. And they are willing to go very far to protect their bigotry.

Let me think about this. . .

Do you think there will be any apology to the students who were sent to the fake prom?

They’ll probably apologize at the same time we hear that Petey and Bam-Bam have decided to come out of the closet, get married to each other, and become Act-Up style activists for gay rights.
BTW Pam, EXCELLENT RESPONSE TO HETERO HOLLY!!

Fair enoughThen he deserved it .
And I agree with your point re. Holly wholeheartedly.  

Excellent Response, Pam.But, as I’m an annoying cuss…
I will point out this story from before the Prom thing became an issue:
http://www.wtva.com/news/local…
Which covers why Constance did things,
And this piece on the whole thing: http://www.bilerico.com/2010/0…
All of which is nicely capped off by another one of the kids trying to defend herself and her classmates: http://www.inquisitr.com/69069…
Which resulted in my response to her here:
I’m not all that nice about it, but then that’s not unusual, lol.
I may cross post the Bilerico piece here later today.  

good linkinteresting blog post you linked to.  that girls viewpoint, while I disgree with it, is food for thought.  
a) what is all the fuss going to do to the innocent bystanders of the debacle (the kids who ditched the whole thing and stayed in and rented a movie, the IAHS freshmen/sophomores, the unnamed sympathizers)?  how will they view the LGBT civil rights/equality movement after this?  with anger, or with a better understanding of the inner workings and with sympathy because of it?
b) how do you, we, I, any of us – feel about making examples of some of the specific high school students involved?  Lindsay Begley, for instance – the one mentioned in the blog post – her full name and facebook info are posted in that article.  Her political affiliation is Liberal (so how did she end up on the wrong side of this incident?).  Will she still be liberal after this?  Regardless of her mistakes, she is young.  I was a prick when I was 18, I hate to think I could never outlive something like having picked on someone.
I don’t know.  It’s a mess all around I guess.  Anyway thanks for the link.

I just keep wondering how many closeted gay people were at this party
along with the African-Americans who’s grandparents experienced the same kind of hate and segregation at the hands of the grandparents of the white kids they were partying with.

who’s = whoseI don’t want MY Mississippi education to come into question.

They wont ever say sorry to anyone. and they will bitch, whine and complain to Faux News about it, wring thier hands and try to prey away teh gay.
I also expect those who went to the fake prom to have to put up with a lot of bullsh1t in the coming weeks becasue those bigots with the IQ’s that match thier shoe sizes will be taking it out on them the whole time saying “why did you do this to us?” ….yes, they’re that stupid. Its freaking Mississippi after all.  

Let’s go further back!Holly and her ilk need to go further back to January when the school harassed and hounded a transgendered boy by then name of Juin Baize, who attended the school for mere hours before he was suspended — no reason given, even though it was mandatory!
Wat pisses me off more than anything else is the fact that the ACLU refused to help Juin, yet fell all over themselves to assist Constance!

i dunno …While I mean no disrespect, Pam I think you are brilliant, I don’t know how much satisfaction anyone should be taking by outsmarting some high school kids.  The community was wrong, but picking on individual kids is like stooping to their level.

JusticeI can dig the desire for justice in the world, but as good as it feels to sock it to this idiot, it serves to further divide.
Letting others know that LGBT (and whatever other letters I may have missed ) are just people and not freaks and not evil is the best way to achieve the ultimate goal of equal rights. (In my opinion, of course)
Her actions would indicate that this girl is a bigotted mean-spirited person that deserves whatever online lashings she may get. But maybe it’s possible that she could be convinced that perhaps what she did was very very wrong.
And if that happens, wouldn’t you want to be more approachable? Wouldn’t you want to get more and more converted ex-idiots on your side?
Just my .02, Pam. I think the world of you. And like it or not, you’re a leader in this battle.
Jeff Slarve

ACLU didn’t care… but Constance did.And y’know? She didn’t have to.
I’m proud to have her around and in the community. She’s the kind of person we need more of.

I expect the exact opposite.I’m just waiting for the whining about how “persecuted” they are for standing up for their “christian faith”.

Poor baby.I sympathize that this girl is, really, just another dumb high school girl.  What she doesn’t seem to realize is that those pictures will float around forever, every time the story is told.  
Some day it will occur to her to actually feel bad about what she took part in doing.  THAT’S when she’ll really start to pay, and keep paying for the rest of her life.

Right on, Pam!Their behavior (INCLUDING same-gender FEMALE kissing) is on the Internet for the world to see. This is a case of hindsight being 20/20-she’s now finding out how acting like an asshole bites you right in the..I think you guys get the picture. Tell little miss Holly to kiss your ass, Pam.
I don’t have any sympathy for this chick at all. You make your bed, you lay in it, Holly.  

Picking on individual kids…
…you mean LIKE CONSTANCE and her partner???
Jessica H. Christ. One should have known the Pansy Pollyannas would weigh in.
“It’s not the Earth the meek inherit it’s the dirt!”

See “…Earth….dirt” above.

will they apologize?“When pigs fly!”
“There’ll be pork in the treetops by morning.”

I’ll second that…on all counts.  I recently received an invite to my upcoming homecoming.  As I looked at the website set up for us old timers to get in touch once again, I see the same old redneck bunch making the same old homophobic, faux xtian comments. I remember the smug, hateful, judgmental beings they were back when and they haven’t changed.  They’re still there, still  hateful as ever.  Now they are passing their values on to their kids, grandkids.  I don’t think they learned anything either.  
So Callie, I think you have it exactly right.  No, I’m not going back.  There just isn’t enough Purell available for me to return.

OkayOkay, I can get that you’re angry.
Obviously, jamming equality down people’s throats isn’t working. For some reason, people think they should have a right to vote on the rights of others.
And this is a high school kid.
But I’ll butt out of this now.
You’ve obviously got a way different fight than what I’m here for.
 

I disagree, jeffI think Pam was very cordial to the young girl. Granted, I see your point but I really don’t think in this case it would have done any good. My guess is that when she gets older and possibly more mature, the young girl was understand how ugly her actions were.

there was no “outsmarting” involvedOutsmarting would involve Holly trying to put one over on someone, which isn’t the case. She was living her life out in public and apparently didn’t have a care in the world (nor her parents, who are adults), and this is the end result of that ignorance.
I could have picked on her, but I didn’t. I merely let her know that bad judgment can have serious consequences, something she didn’t seem to worry about when someone else was being treated as a pariah. She had complete control over what parties had the ability to see and share her photos from day 1. We’re not talking about “kids.” They were certainly old enough to either 1) collude to do what they did to Constance and the LD students or 2) silent, which as history tells us, is as bad as participating in something morally wrong.

Yup!I read that… and kudos to Constance for being a trans ally! Too bad the schol didn’t learn, and now they’re going to pay big time…

Team Spaulding!I’m with Pam on this… the skank thought she had privilege, because she was straight, but she didn’t.

I feel the same way about MY high school..The 25th reunion came and went. I had better things to do. I know a lot of gay men/lesbians who went to the same school and feel the same way. And this school’s in CA. I can only imagine what some Blenders went through outside of CA.  

Do you think it’s possibleThat his discomfort was instead caused by the harassment his fellow students subjected him to? If shunning the South African kid for factors beyond his control is OK by you, did you also support the harassment that Iraqi students suffered during Gulf War 1?

And we all knowThat 2 wrongs make a right. Or was that 3 lefts? Not that I necessarily think Pam was wrong, I’ll have to think that over?

Yup. Just what I thought…Good little Xtian girls french kissing in the USA. God Bless Amurikka! Talk about hypocrisy….as I’ve said elsewhere, Constance and her date would have probably acted with FAR more class and decorum than those kids.  

I’m on Team Spaulding as well….If little miss sunshine had chosen the very clear privacy filter for her pics on Facebook, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Holly and company were fully a) old enough and b)fucking AWARE of what was up. I highly doubt they didn’t know what was happening to Constance and the LD kids while they were living it up at their prom. As far as I’m concerned, those kids DESERVE this.  

We need to not only jam equality down their throats….But up their asses as well. Being “nicey-nice” and “please like us” sure as F*CK is NOT WORKING. AT ALL. So, we make damn sure they CAN’T vote on our rights-by going to the courts. They don’t like it? F*CK THEM. This is the United States-a republic which is also a democracy, which means the tyranny of the majority. And between us and our allies who are straight, WE ARE THE MAJORITY.
And as for the subject at hand, these kids knew damn good and well what the hell was up, as I’ve said above. Kids aren’t stupid. So, they deserve what they get and MORE of it. I don’t agree with getting abusive or violent, but a response like Pam’s will get them thinking.  

THANK YOU, PAM! Sorry to hyjack, but I just have to say this….I see this all the time-kids who think they can post anything they want on their Facebook and think nothing bad will happen to them. From the KFC Girls (who took some hot tub pics in the sink used to wash dishes at the KFC and thought nobody would find them) to girls doing the faux-lesbian BS to entice boys, these kids make some really stupid choices. And Pam’s right-most employers do an Internet check on potential employees. They check Facebook, MySpace,Twitter,everything.
And if anyone has pics of something dumb they’ve done in the past? Their resume is promptly put in the circular file.
After the HR people get a good laugh, that is.
Frankly, I think there should be a “Do’s and Don’ts on the Internet” class in every high school in this country. Show these kids what they’re doing, and why it’s an impediment to their future.
Prom pictures? Usually OK. Prom pictures from a segregated (and that’s what this is) prom, especially the one that Constance was excluded from? Oh, hell no.  

JuinIt is absolutely false that the ACLU refused to help Juin.

Hey, be realistic.A few of them might want to leave their town someday to buy shoes.

an ID10 T error.in other words.

Hmmm, this leaves me wondering…Is this by any chance the high school Carrie Prejean attended?

Hear, hear!

Umm…Based on what I read, the ACLU said that there wasn’t much that they could do because Juin had left for Florida. Since he left the district where the school was located, they felt that they didn’t have much of a case.
We still don’t have a federal law protecting students’ gender expression (though there’s one under discussion), so IMO they were probably right; all the school would have to say is that he failed to comply with the dress code since there’s nothing that prevents them from using gender-specific codes.

Jammin’Okay, y’all.
But, if it were really a majority, then this would all be moot, and there would be no prop 8 in CA, and everything would be grooovy.
You don’t get people on board by calling them an a-hole (or equivalent).
And, although kids aren’t stupid (some sure as hell are), they aren’t the ones you take the fight up with (parents get really really bitchy when adults mess with their kids, by the way, and I’m guessing there are some sort of laws about it). Kids are a product of their environment. They’re raised this way from birth, and it’s ingrained in their entire being, then they pass it on to their young’ns.
It’s not their fault that they suck. They just had great bigot training.
With education and word of mouth, people are turning around, slowly. You can bet my own kids are not anti-gay, and I know theirs won’t be either. And I’ve noticed a lot more people “coming out” (which I think is crucial to the fight). You don’t ONLY see same-sex couples holding hands in SF, West Hollywood and Palm Springs anymore.
Not saying that’s good enough, but it’s way better than it was 10 years ago. And the number of “out” gay kids in high school seems to be increased, versus the previously closeted kids that I knew in high school in the 1980s (but didn’t know they were gay).
I don’t think the living experience of outed teens in high school is positive yet, though. I still think it’s very rough.
People still suck. Really bad.
As a straight man, I obviously have no clue what you all have had to deal with all your lives, so I can only use my imagination about how you feel, and I’m pretty sure that’s grossly inadequate, as Lurleen already told me.
I want to help make it better and right, and I’m sorry that I stuck my ignorant Polyanna mug into y’all’s business.
I wish I was an orator like Martin Luther King, who could probably fix up this post into something that makes sense to someone. All I’m doing now is pissing people off, but I mean well.
Somebody out there in the world has the gift of delivering the message in the way that people will actually hear it instead of what they assume they’re going to hear.
It’s so important, and seems as if it’s getting so bungled up.
I wish you all happiness and equality in your lifetimes, and the sooner the better.

Is Holly a regular here at the Blend? Hmmmmm….

brilliant ideaI second the motion for adding the pretty young bigot bitches to the sidebar as “The faces of bigotry, ignorance, and evil.” Go for it, Pam!

That won’t be a problemI expect that the next town over is not much more open minded.

Please watch the California-supremacySpeaking as an ex-Californian now living in Charlottesville, VA and as someone who still struggles with my own California-supremacy, I point out there are places in the South that are more tolerant* than some places in California. My mother, who lives in the San Diego suburbs, caught more flak for putting anti-Prop 8 stickers on her car than I caught for all of the “No on 1” marching, chalking, chanting, etc. that I did here.
VA is a horribly backward state in many respects, including queer rights. Neither California nor the remainder of the United States, however, is completely homogeneous. Why not simply say that your school was a reasonably tolerant, progressive, or accepting place rather than implicitly assert that all schools outside of CA are necessarily less queer-friendly than those in CA?
As an aside, if you are curious about the experience of queer folk outside of urban areas, you might try John Howard’s Men Like That: A Southern Queer History. Howard relates some surprising anecdotes from the oral histories he collected, including one of Mississippi town condemning the murderer of a local gay man.
* I am quite aware that, as Amy Ray put it, “Tolerance, it ain’t acceptance”. It is, in my mind, the bare minimum of a civilized society. My point is simply that there are places in CA that haven’t even achieved that, and places outside of CA that have.

I went to school in Tucson, ArizonaNot a Bible-thumpin’ town in the early 80s when I was there, but not exactly a bastion of progressive thinking, either. I had plenty of classmates who praised Jesus for everything from getting a decent grade to their grandmother dying, and I got harassed quite a bit for being openly non-Christian.
I deliberately skipped my 10th and 20th reunion, and made certain to tell the organizers exactly why I refuse to have anything to do with that crowd.

High school is far too lateSuch education should begin in 4th grade, with mandatory refresher units (social studies?) in ever grade thereafter.

I blame the adults in Fulton, MS far more than the kids.It was the school district who canceled the original prom rather than allow a gay person to attend. It was the school district that fought in court for their right to impose bigoted, hurtful rules on the young people they are contractually and morally obligated to mentor and support. It was the adults in town – school administrators and parents and business owners – who got together and funded a lavish private party in order to exclude a gay couple and the school’s learning disabled students.
If their behavior wasn’t criminal it was certainly deeply immoral. The kids were along for the ride.

And that’s when the school turned on Constance. Until then, she was popular.The school district turned on Constance when she stood up for the rights of somebody who was different. Then she stood up for her own rights, and the rights of everybody in her school district to be treated with decency. And that is unacceptable, apparently, in Fulton, MS. The Itawamba School District can’t tolerate that kind of Christian love. So they set out to destroy Constance McMillen.  

yeahI think I agree with you, Jeff.  I have mixed feelings about seeing some of the kids made examples of.  On the one hand, I think maybe it needs to happen, maybe they do deserve it.  On the other hand, unlike some people believe yes they ARE STILL KIDS.  I don’t care if they are 18, I remember myself at 18 too well to think these kids have the maturity their parents should have had and didn’t.  I wonder if holding them up for public scorn will only serve to deepen their anger and resentment against our community, and foster further misunderstanding.  Where are the faces of the guilty adults, the teenagers’ parents and the school board?      
Disturbingly, and somewhat off-topic, I’ve seen people saying that we need to “jam equality up their asses.”  Someone in the comments above got called a Pansy Pollyanna for questioning whether it is right or wrong to make examples of these kids, as if petty name-calling amongst ourselves is going to help anything whatsoever.  It’s become a circus.
 

This is not “picking on” anyone. This is posting evidence of a crime.If not a legal crime, then certainly a crime against human decency. The community of Fulton, Mississippi did something last weekend that has been done over and over again to maintain segregation in the face of laws against it – they hid behind “private party” and “freedom to associate” in order to justify excluding people they didn’t like from a public school function. And now the adults who funded this and defended it in court – are trying to lie and pretend that none of it happened. Posting the evidence is essential.  

PricelessThis is priceless.  They’ll continue to get what they deserve.  Can’t avoid Karma.  Or the internet.

Take a look at the comments on this site, for example. See what we’re up against.http://theweek.com/article/ind…
Read all the comments defending the right of the community to treat another human being this way. They’re proud of themselves. They think they are justified. They think it was the moral thing to do!

That’s one of the reasons I WANT to go back to my ReunionI want to know that gay people went to the high school and I’m proud of who I am.  I find it very empowering.

Amy Ray isn’t a great example to hold up of acceptance or toleranceI’d agree with you…But that said, Amy Ray isn’t a great example to hold up of acceptance or tolerance. This year, she’s performing at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival — the festival that has a transphobic attendance policy in place.
Amy Ray’s planned performance at the segregated Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival is herself actively promoting intolerance — she’s promoting intolerance of trans women.

Actually, it wasn’t…I went to school in the 1980′s. Sure, for every San Francisco there’s a Fresno or Bakersfield, and the Prop 8 assholes made everyone here in CA look like a bunch of backward hicks, but I’m grateful every day that my grandparents made the choice to come here from Arkansas.
Sure, there are parts of NC, SC, Georgia and Florida that are tolerant, but I’d rather be in CA than there.  

Only, it wasn’t private….http://i89.photobucket.com/alb…
This flier was sent out by the SCHOOL. They thought they could punk Constance with one prom and then organize THIS ONE with Constance, her date, and the learning disabled kids excluded. That’s not only illegal, it’s immoral. I certainly hope the judge in this case hauls the school district’s lawyers in their chambers and demands an explanation for this nonsense.  

ExcellentI love seeing these asshats get a taste of reality.  

Making an example?!Nobody posted those pics on Facebook but Holly herself.  She is a victim of her own stupidity.  If anyone has “made an example of her,” it was her–she did this to herself.  All Pam did was point the fact out.  The right-wing Christian crowd are always screaming about personal responsibility.  It looks to me like Holly and her cronies are learning a very tidy little lesson about that.

That flyer is dated back in February, when the prom was first planned. However, it’s a very interesting document.When the story about the fake prom hit early this week, parents and students from Itawamba High School insisted that Constance did attend the “real prom” and that the other event attended by most of the students was a “private party.” Some even claimed that it was a “birthday party.” They insisted that it was not the prom. No, no, no. The “prom” was the one that Candace and handful of special needs kids were sent to. The big event held “out in the county” with dozens of kids dressed up in prom gowns, tuxedos, and corsages was a “private party.”
Only, it’s really interesting that the “private party” had the same Masquerade theme as the school’s originally planned prom. And it was held on the same date. With the same decorations. This flyer dated in February documents all those original plans. There are photos on the internet showing banners at the “private party” that say “Masquerade Prom 2010.”
The other interesting thing about this document is its final line. Note that the school went out of their way from the very beginning to make sure that gay kids knew that they were excluded unless they came closeted.  

They did celebrate the distribution of the photos – until they got negative backlash.I read a lot of the FB pages before they were locked. They were laughing and high-fiving one another all weekend about their “Prom 2010″ and how they had to remember (lololol) to call it a “private party.” They were having a big time on their “Quit Yer Cryin Constance” FB page. They put those photos up because they WERE proud of themselves, and their parents put up FB pages of their own to brag about how clever they’d been to pull a fast one on Constance – whom they called all kinds of vicious names I won’t repeat here.
It was only when the rest of the world expressed disapproval, even horror, at their behavior did the good people of Fulton, Mississippi decide that they had a right to privacy on the internet.

Thanks for the clarification, NightOwl…Ah, that IS very interesting…I’m willing to bet dimes to dollars that the school district DID have something to do with the Heteros only prom, but had the parents throw it instead. I’d still have the lawyers for the district in my chambers for an explanation if I were the judge. I’d have those parents in there as well.
And yup, that was a very clear message to the gay kids that they weren’t welcome as they are. How fucked up is that?  

Yup. Pretty much the same way in Cypress, CA. I got harassed for not only being a girl of size and tomboyish(I got the word dyke a lot), but also because I didn’t buy the conservative Reagan bullshit they were passing out. There were a lot of my classmates who felt the same way, and got the same harassment. One classmate in particular openly said “Reagan is an asshole!” She was right.
I’ve never been to my class reunion. I didn’t go for the 5th, the 10th, the 20th or the 25th. It’s a waste of money and time, and I just don’t care to go and meet up with the people who made me feel like the lowest piece of s*it in the universe because I wasn’t like them. I personally think that’s why I’m so riled up like this-it sounds like EXACTLY what the folks in Cypress would have pulled had it happened there.
So no, we in CA aren’t bigotry free by any means.  

Yeah, saw that too….F*ck them and their privacy on the Internet. You don’t have the right to be an obnoxious bigot like THEY were this weekend.  

I wonder.If the situation were reversed, and it was a gay teen who had posted embarrassing pictures, and a homophobe re-posting them for the purpose of public mockery, would you consider that a valid tactic? I agree that her peers were assholes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that anything goes.

Once you removethe aspects of oppression and marginalization that are present and allow for the justification, then no it is not a valid tactic.
But there is so much more involved than that simple question.

At least Tucsonisn’t Maricopa County.

Hon, they’re bullies…And you can’t be civil with a bully. You can’t reason with a bully. The only language that a bully understands is bullying back. It’s high time we did this. I agree we need to stay as non violent as possible, but these kids did this to themselves. If they had kept the prom pics private, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
No gay teen would be stupid enough to post embarrassing pictures on the Internet. I’ve known too many gay kids to ever think they would do something like the kids in Fulton. That’s the difference.  

Ugh, Orange County. I still have you beatI lived for two and a half years in Visalia, Tulare County, about half way between Fresno and Bakersfield in I-99.
I was an Episcopalian then. The parish, St. Paul’s, was basically Assemblies of God with the Book of Common Prayer. The bishop was John-David Schofield. At his demand, the diocese was one of only three that still refused to ordain women or let women excercise any priestly authority. When Gene Robinson was consecrated as Bishop of New Hampshire, Schofield led the charge to abscond with every piece of diocesan property because “the Episcopal Church now served Satan.” Eventually, the House of Bishops stripped him of his priestly authority and deposed him — the last time they deposed a bishop was during the Civil War — and he now leads a schismatic “Anglican Diocese of the San Joachin” with no women priests, gay people or liberals allowed.
I attended college while there, and dated a guy for a while. He was not out to his family, and when his Mormon parents got fed up with his disinterest in women they bullied him into what amounted to an arranged marriage.
Trust me: once I had my associate’s degree and was reasonably financially secure, I left and never looked back.

I will grant you that n/t

OK, yeah-that’s badVisalia, Fresno and Bakersfield make OC look tolerant. Sorry you had to go through that, Tech.  

Did they allow kids to bringRNC staffers as dates?

Do they realize what they’re saying?

“Nobody cares that Constance is gay – it’s just that she ruined their entire senior year to get attention. And besides, being gay is against God’s law.”

That seems to logically imply that God is a nobody…

AgreedAnd remove each one if and when they recant their bigotry and apologise as that is fair. And return the pics if ever its learned they gave a false apology.
It is wrong to falsely slanfer libel or vilify someone, but you cannot sully a repuation with the full in-context truth.
Please also add the Principal who kicked out the Transgender kid which Constance was protesting with her Tuxedo plans and also add any teachers and parents on record as supporting these wrongdoings.
Let these people stand by and be known for their views. Let their reputation accuratly reflect their behaviour.
And lets show them compassion if they learn better. But untill they do then why protect them from the consequences of their actions?

It’s a cop-out!The ACLU still could have gone after IAHS, due to the fact Juin was forced out!
Juin was still a student at IAHS, and was given two highly illegal suspensions, and because Juin was forced by hir’s “loving” grandmother to leave.
I’m happy Juin’s in a loving home and in an accepting school system, but it’s still pissed the ACLU turned turtle on Juin until the more media-friendly incident with Constance happened.

Somebody put all the evidence together on a website – take a look!http://milowent.blogspot.com/2…

Can’t wait until they apply for jobsand the interviewer Googles their names.  

A lawyer who got his law degree by mail-order?

I’d agree with that.I went to school in Orange County, CA and it was NOT a tolerant place at all. There are reasons why I won’t go to my high school reunions. Some of them are named Adam, David, Jason, Christi, Julie and Kim.  

Salt?Maybe in the sense of “sowing the fields with salt” so that nothing will grow there for a hundred years. They’ve certainly done that to their future prospects with these shenanigans.
But then again, there’s another Bible-ism: “You reap what you sow.” Too bad they didn’t figure that out earlier.

This.

Even in the situation you describeit would not be an exact copy of what happened. Much as we want it to be true, we do not have equality in this country, and no gay teen would have the power to do what you describe.