Constance McMillen’s Fake Prom

Foolton, Mythissippi

This. This right here. This shows, with unwavering clarity, the fruits of building a morality on bronze-age mythology and bronze-age values, rather than empathy, compassion, understanding, and acceptance for one’s fellow man.

My first question – there were 5 other students at the “real” prom. Were they all duped? Or, was there amongst the entire Christian-love-filled school, a single individual student with the moral fortitude and backbone to shun the secret prom and show up at the real prom to support Constance? If there was, and if they’ll accept it, might I recommend to a certain secular organization the idea of a “Tolerance Scholarship” award? I’d contribute.

My second question – can we get the other high school students out of the spotlight (specifically addresssing PZ’s quote and the like)… These kids are still young enough and sufficiently steeped in peer pressure / community pressure / family pressure that expecting any individual amongst them to break from the crowd may be a bit much (the independence of college is typically accepted as the time and place for one’s moral worldview to fully mature). Instead, can we get some investigative journalism to cast a bright light on specific actions taken by specific parents, school faculty, and community leaders – if they’re proud of what they did, let’s let them tell the whole world about it.

I can imagine high schoolers being cruel. High school is often a difficult time for people, even the popular people, and probably anyone who really thought about it would be embarrassed by stuff they did in high school. I can believe high schoolers are stupid enough to blame Constance when the administration is to blame for not just allowing her to go to prom, so we would not have ever heard of her or Fulton. I have a really, really hard time understanding how the parents justify this to themselves. The kids didn’t plan that prom on their own; parents had to help. So, Fulton adults: what the hell is wrong with you?

I have been following this story and I know that at least at one point Constance said she wanted to go to college in… Tennessee, I think, and then move back to Mississippi. And to be fair, demographically GLBT people tend to move to big cities, and therefore people in these small towns can hate because they do not know the people they hate. Constance may like small town Southern life, and only by retaining non-straight people will these small towns realize that lesbians are people too. She may find her love of small town Southern life outweighs her desire to flee (and at least when see gave that interview, she had no desire to flee) and we probably shouldn’t press that on her. Of course, had this been me I would flee, and she may have changed her mind- or maybe she wants to drag Mississippi kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

You know who I feel sorriest for? Constance is getting a scholarship, an internship, and has family who loves and supports her. Her girlfriend, apparently 15 and living with parents who hate all this, is stuck at this school for another 2-3 years.

“…that much of the fault of this whole stink lies with Constance… her crazy-reckless need for attention. It sounds mean and horrible and like we planned it all specifically to embarrass Constance, but we didn’t.”

Yeah. It was her fault being different. They just decided to have their own prom, and give Constance and a few “slow” kids a separate prom. Bastards.

Why are all of the comments on this article one-sided? I am not saying what happened was right, but a lot of the comments seem to skim over the article and get up in an outrage over something that they know nothing about. Clearly there is more to this story than just gay rights. Is it not possible that the students didnt want Constance at the prom because of WHO she is, not because she is gay? The comment from the student alludes to the fact that an entire year of their highschool was ruined by Constance. Perhaps she did deserve to be excluded from the rest of the kids so they could actually enjoy themselves. Maybe not but I am just saying its a possibility, don’t jump to conclusions.
But I am guessing my comment gets “screened out” as well, too bad.

What a rotten, homophobic thing to do. These bigoted parents have proven themselves to be just as catty as their teenagers.

Constance, be strong! Be proud of who you are! There are a lot of people out in the world who support you.

Kevin

The short answer is that no, we can’t keep the other high school students out of the spotlight, nor should we. They were all old enough to know what they were doing, it’s the same principal that only being part of a lynch mob somehow excuses the individuals from any responsibility of a lynching.
We might have been able to, were it not for the facebook group that they set up called “Constance quit your crying” here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Constance-quit-yer-cryin/367776042862?v=wall&ref=sgm

If you display your bigotry that obviously, where anyone can find it then you really can’t expect other people not to find it.

For many the purpose of religion is to separate people into opposing groups (which is tribalism).

saved, damned
straight, gay
conservative, liberal
believer, non-believer
right religion, wrong religion
right denomination, wrong denomination
correct baptisms, incorrect baptisms

Not exactly the American way…

What struck me about this the most was that the students were so energized by the issue of homosexuality, that they didn’t even want to be in the same room as the couple.

Don’t they have enough self-control to just ignore what they don’t want for themselves?

One of the answers to that is that those students are just like the population at large, mostly heterosexual, yet a non-trivial number are homosexuals or bisexuals. Yet, they can’t be associated with that, so to personally avoid that stigma, they go out of their way to actively thwart anyone who is comfortable with themselves as they are.

The full answer must be fear of being ostracized themselves. If it weren’t, then who cares what someone else does? As a primary taboo in Christianity is sex, not food or some other issue, any sexual expression is emphasized and they don’t want to be associated with it and the stigma it brings.

Reminds me of when I went to High School in Mississippi and they built the new High School and I found it odd how they always had 3 water fountains, 2 normal height 1 low together. They are still very much into segregation, and this is just a loophole they found to be able to practice it on another group of people since practicing segregation on African Americans would be bad PR.

So blatently obvious when they sent all the learning disabled to the prom.

There are two quotes in all of this that I just absolutely love:

We wanted a drama-free gathering to celebrate 3 great years and 1 lousy one together, and we wanted to lay low. … What people are failing to realize is that much of the fault of this whole stink lies with Constance, not her mistreatment by the school district, but her crazy-reckless need for attention.

And from PZ’s blog:

i just wish she would shut up and quit makeing the freakin county stupid you say well its there fault but since when did the public do anything to you just shut the freak up already.

So these people aren’t bigoted against gays and lesbians, they just don’t want to create the drama that would invariably emerge from their reaction to a lesbian student just wanting to be her self. They could have avoided the drama by not reacting to Constance and her girlfriend in the first place; none of this would have occurred if no one had a problem with a lesbian taking her female date to the original prom.

There is no doubt that these people believe it is better to lie to one self than to speak the truth to others. Their attitude towards themselves and other people is: self-denial.

On the second comment: it’s not Constance who’s making the county look dumb, it’s those who ostracised her and then tried to justify their actions without admitting that they are little more than homophobic or bigoted.

This case really exposes the fundamental flaw with the small-town phenomenon. There tends to be a level of familiarity that comes from being a small community of people, but most often it creates xenophobia. There may be a high degree of security when everyone knows everyone, but because the security of the community relies on familiarity then even small differences within the populace tend to be perceived as a disruption and thus a threat that needs to be resisted. In other words: differences are seen as the source of disorder.

Jeff P

For many the purpose of religion is to separate people into opposing groups (which is tribalism).

Even though tribalism is written into human nature. It is not that the purpose of religion is to separate people into opposing groups, (it may be the case with fundamentalism, but not religion in general), rather it is that religion provides an efficient means for establishing a secure community of members who are typically united by a dominant commonality; it is that establishment of community which then allows for the tribalistic nature of humans to create the problem of xenophobia. They will then find whatever they can to justify that xenophobia. In the absence of religion people will still find the reasons and means for favouring social bonding with others like them selves, it even appears to be happening with atheists and secularists who have recently begun to organise themselves into communities.

There wouldn’t have been any “drama” from Constance if the school hadn’t been full of bigots to begin with. The false justification is pathetic.

The students should be ashamed. I hope that someday when they have children they look back and realize how horrible they were. To some extent I can forgive the teens because teens do really dumb things. The people that make me the most angry in this situation are the parents. Not a single one of them that knew what was going on can call themselves decent.

“They had two proms and I was only invited to one of them,” McMillen tell the Advocate. “The one that I went to had seven people there and everyone went to the other one I wasn’t invited to.”

Yes, a privately funded one thrown by the parents who spent their own money to throw their kids a replacement prom. I don’t invite people I don’t like to my social functions. In any large group there are generally many people that I consider unworthy of association for a variety of reasons. Hating and excluding someone for being gay (or black or white or anything else) is just not that big a deal to me.

But, at the same time, I wouldn’t engineer a stunt like this just so I can avoid 1 or 2 people. I think that’s borderline pathological. You can’t go through life avoiding people you don’t like.

I think the school overreacted. I think the parents overreacted and I think her fellow students overreacted. Constance, obviously, didn’t do anything wrong by simply picking her own date.

“It hurts my feelings,” McMillen says.

I have to wonder: was all this really a shock to Constance? She obviously was already “out.” Otherwise no one would have known about her intended prom date. So, she probably knew the attitudes of her fellow students. Did she really want to attend a prom with people who hate her? Is she feeling betrayed by all this? I doubt it. How can you be betrayed by people who are already against you.

I’d get the fuck out of Dodge as soon as humanly possible if I were in her shoes.

From the Facebook group where the people are uprising against the students, looks like the school administration ran a trans student out of town too.

Now, its personal. The game is on.

This is going to make me very unpopular but I lost respect for Constance with her own bigoted remarks. She seems to find something wrong with partying with the “learning disabled” students rather than the popular kids. Maybe she needs to come down off her own high horse and choose her friends more carefully too. She sounds like she’s complaining about being put on the short bus.

Hateful as it was and dispicable as it indeed was Killer Bee’s right. Parents running a private affair are free to invite who they choose and the snots can exclude anyone they damn well feel like excluding. What should have happened is more kids should have preferred the short bus Constance is herself hating on.

And Constance, regardless of how few were there, should have partied and had one hell of a time (just like the “learning disabled” did; why does she make such a point of labeling only two of the five that came to the real prom with her and her date; I think they proved themself smarter than her by not letting it ruin their night). Nothing would have been more in your face.

I’m fast coming to the conclusion she would have tried to crash the private affair had she known about it and been told she was not welcome.

But, overall, I’ll agree that the greatest guilt lies with the parents and the school officials. And, please, don’t overgeneralize all the school officials. Maybe some of those teachers who were at the real prom chose to be to show their support. Maybe they were the ones who made it possible for the kids who weren’t busy pouting to sincerely have a good time. Who were the other three anyway? Why are they not being counted? Because Constance doesn’t think they’re important.

I really don’t like the snobbery sneaking out of her. I big time don’t like it.

Jen, I have been wondering about her date too. Why aren’t we hearing her opinion on the matter? You’d think reporters would be getting as many sound bites from her as they are Constance. She must have agree to this but, man, is Constance letting her speak? Or is she just choosing not to?

PZ said:

Not that it’s much of a worry for these losers; Jiffy Lube probably doesn’t care much about their network trail

For someone so supposedly liberal and “tolerant”, PZ sure goes out of his way to denigrate people who work at Jiffy Lube.

Is working at Jiffy Lube somehow not worthy of our respect? Is it considered below a “respectable” job? I think we see PZ’s true feelings concerning working class people.

As for this charade: It’s all a big mess, all around. I don’t know what the solution is. I dont have a problem with gays, but let’s be honest: showing up with her lesbian girlfriend would have caused quite a stir and detracted from the rest of the evening. I can understand (though not necessarily condone) the school’s actions in not allowing her to attend with another girl.

But then this whole garbage with the secret event. It just seemed mean. The whole thing was ruined once the story went public, so I’m not sure, at that point, whether there could have been a satisfactory ending.

I feel most sorry for the lesbian GF. She didn’t ask for any of this and who knows if she’s comfortable with the pressure.

ONESTDV, you have a valid point about the Jiffy Lube comment. The rest is utterly wrong. If showing up with her girlfriend would have created a stir that’s not Constance’s fault, that’s the fault of any bigots who would have made a stir over it. Showing up isn’t disruptive. Making noise and being bigoted assholes would be,

On a different note, I’m slightly disturbed by the apparent desire to connect students’ names to this for future employment. They are high school students. They are young and immature and most have likely never been outside their homestate at all. Having views that reflect those around them shouldn’t be held against them. If in 3 or 4 years they still have those views, that’s a very different situation.

Is working at Jiffy Lube somehow not worthy of our respect? Is it considered below a “respectable” job?

Yes, actually, most people with any sort of higher education don’t consider a job that doesn’t require any sort of formal training or a high school degree to be “respectable.”

There are certainly plenty of necessary professions that fall into that category, but in the US it’s easy enough to get some sort of higher education (if not a university degree, at least training at a vocational school) that it is considered indicative of a personal failure if you don’t have a job that requires that sort of thing.

Mind you, I’m not saying that that’s necessarily right, and it’s certainly not nice, but that’s the way it is.

When I saw the story from another site’s feed, I thought it was some kind of sick joke. Well, it is, but it looks like it was also real too. I wondered how they could pull off this separation.

It’s crazy how people would take a change in status quo and assume that anyone that’s not in the status quo must be in it for the attention. In a way, I can understand the desire for a drama-free event, but there probably wouldn’t have been any drama if the school didn’t try canceling the prom or pressuring certain students to not go, without realizing that they’ll get a lot of national attention for doing it. Kind of like kicking a rock pile and complaining that there’s a rock slide.

@OneSTDV
Being tolerant and liberal doesn’t mean you are always walking on eggshells.

Would you be proud of your child if he aspired to work at Jiffy Lube? Do you aspire to someday do oil changes for $19.95? These are rhetorical questions with obvious answers of a resounding NO.

It may be rude, but not inaccurate, to state that most Jiffy Lube employees have failed on several major levels of their life planning. They certainly deserve respect, but that doesn’t mean they need to be commended.

Jiffy Lube employees are not a part of the working class. They are akin to grocery store and gas station employees. They have a low paying job that requires no experience and does not challenge them. It is a cop out job and a lazy option. My father is a mechanic and earns a good living, to lump him into the same group as Jiffy Lube employees is disrespectful to all hard working men and women.

@Joshua Zelinsky
People have to be aware that there are consequences to their actions. These kids who just graduated from high school are old enough to know this. Just because you are a teen does not give you a blanket exception from the rules. If you kill someone as 16-18 year old, you face adult consequences. If you go on record as being a hateful bigot, you need to be held to those comments. Until you prove otherwise, you are what your comments say.

How do you think these same people are going to behave in the real world where they have to deal with non-white individuals all the time? Are they going to be the type that calls the cops just because someone with turban walks into their store? Ignorance breeds stupidity (and vice versa).

noah wrote:

except that she was invited to the other prom; she just decided not to go because she thought she would be unwelcome.

How do you get this? It seems pretty clear that she was not informed of the existence of the second prom until later, and all her statements clearly say she was not invited to the second prom.

Constance goes to prom, but most of her classmates go to another one

@noah
“While I think her treatment in this situation was quite shabby, it’s just not true that she couldn’t have gone to the other prom.”

Yes, it is true she couldn’t have gone to the other prom. The prom(s) was by INVITATION only even before the controversy. Students also had to list who they were bringing.

That classmate of hers ticks me off.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that Ms. McMillen really was doing this all just for the attention. You don’t respond to that by holding a whole separate prom. You just walk up to her at prom, say, “Hello Connie, it’s great to meet you and your girlfriend!” and then go back to doing whatever it is you’re doing.

That way, if she’s just doing it for the attention, you deprive her of the satisfaction of your outraged reaction. And if she’s not doing it for the attention, you just treat her politely.

What else can these poor Mississippians do? They can’t keep out the blacks, interracial couples, and now gays. Only thing left are those mean atheists!

Baptist churches send letters to the high school thanking them for banning homosexuality: http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/04/07/21688

” Dear editor,

The purpose of this letter is to commend the Itawamba County School Board and Superintendent of Education Teresa McNeece for the stand they have taken in the midst of the controversy surrounding this year’s IAHS prom. The policy of the school district was in place long before Constance McMillen decided to “assert her rights.” The majority of the headlines and news casts regarding this subject have blamed the school board and superintendent for trying to deny this girl her rights. However, that simply is not true. She has the same rights as every other student in our school district. They also blame the school board and superintendent for canceling the prom, but that blame lies completely with the homosexual activists and the ACLU.

Since this controversy began, there has been an outcry of support for the homosexual cause. Let us say that there are those of us who support the cause of Christ. Since Ms. McMillen chose to reference the Bible in support of her lifestyle choice, we felt compelled to set the record straight. Please be clear. This lifestyle is a choice. No one is “born that way.” As Ms. McMillen sat and held her Bible in one of her televised interviews, we wonder if she has read Leviticus 18:22 which reads, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination” and Romans 1:26-27 which reads, “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.” Other scriptures for reference include: 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Genesis 19, Judges 19 & 20. We encourage Ms. McMillen and others to read the Bible for themselves. We believe that homosexuality is wrong, a perversion, and detrimental to society in general. Several years ago, this behavior was virtually unheard of and not all accepted by the vast majority. Now it is heralded as an alternate lifestyle. Sexual immorality of any kind should not be on public display in any arena and especially not in the school system.

We are all sinners, Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,” but God’s abundant grace is free to all, Romans 10:13, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” When we come to Christ in repentance and faith, we come as we are, but we do not leave unchanged. God calls us to a higher standard of living. The “my way” and “I’ll live any way I choose” attitudes are replaced by “not my will but thine be done.” Clearly from the scriptures listed above, homosexuality is NOT God’s will.

It is not our intention to give the impression that we hate the homosexual community. We do not. We have a Christian love and concern for their souls. However, we could not sit in silence as if we agree with this behavior. Saying you are a homosexual and proud of it is one thing, but to imply that the Bible endorses it is foolish. We felt we had a responsibility to this and future generations to take a stand for the right. Ephesians 6:13 “… and having done all, to stand.”

If there are others in this county and elsewhere who are in agreement with our position on the matter, we invite you to stand with us. Write letters of your own, call senators and representatives and most of all, pray.

Concerned about our children,

Membership of Bethany Baptist Church
Oakland Community
Fulton ”

But they don’t hate lesbians, really! They just love the sin and hate the sinner but want to show their love by discrimination! Is the whole town full of bigots?

I don’t know what else may have occurred on this alleged “lousy year”, but if all this person wanted to do was be herself at a group event (and one that’s supposed to be an expression of social cohesion, for crying out loud!) without being harassed or made uncomfortable, I certainly wouldn’t call that “reckless attention-seeking” – in fact, I’d call it precisely the opposite.

People who just want to be themselves may attract attention in doing so but, with few exceptions, that’s not their intent, and it’s not their fault; it’s the fault of the tribalistic gawpers who become insecure and fearful at the sight of anyone that might be construed to be an outsider, and pay excessive attention to them in an effort to intimidate them. I’m not so sure she was “attention-seeking” so much as they were “attention-inflicting.” Excessive, uninvited attention can be a most unpleasant thing.

I find it quite ironic that what she has effectively done, via the mass media, is turn the tables and invite the attention of a much, much bigger in-group upon the small-town tribalistic bigots, turning them into the outsiders.

By the way, on the subject of the kids with learning disabilities: I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe these kids and their parents, realizing the horrible injustice being perpetrated upon Constance because of blind hatred of ‘the other’, decided that they would show her their support and go to her prom rather than the bigots’ prom.

Has anyone said whether or not they were actually forced to go to her prom, or if it was their choice?

If you have to say you don’t hate homosexuals, you fucking do, you’re just too fucking cowardly to admit it. I find it quite amusing how these fucktards say it’s not because they’re lesbians, but it is because a girl wanted to take her girlfriend to the prom. Trying to pass tradition and protocol off as neutral to the subject. It’s not understandable that lesbians at a prom would “cause a stir” or “detract” from the event. Basically these bigoted morons are saying they have no problem with homosexuals, as long as they’re not alerted to the existence of them, and they don’t expect to be treated the same as heterosexual partnerships. If homosexuals demand to be treated equally and with respect they get called attention whores and drama queens. Fuck those dumb hicks.

What’s really important is that we show compassion to the victims of this situation: the five other kids at the same prom as Constance, and employees of Jiffy Lube®.

Oh, and any student that’ll have their publicly posted intolerant comments held against them. And all the students that kept their prom a secret (to keep it from being “ruined” by “teh gays”).

Basically, everyone except Constance and her date.

I grew up 70 miles from Fulton, in another less-than-progressive city. Places like Fulton tend to have little to offer if you’re ambitious or have academic leanings. Nashville TN, Huntsville or Birmingham AL, or Atlanta GA are all fairly progressive cities that present opportunities for a much higher quality of life.

I grew up in Houston and I thought Texas was the intolerance and hate capital of America. Man was I WRONG. Fundie Xitians in Texas couldn’t hold the jock of these school officials. I was bullied often and socially rejected myself while in high school. While I am not gay, I do understand peer rejection but I could never imagine school officials actively assisting in bullying and harassment of this student. At least when I was bullied, the school officials just squeezed their eyes shut real hard and hoped it would go away.

Staging a bogus prom?!?! I cannot think of a four letter word to describe these school officials and students.

I hope Ms. McMillian becomes a very rich woman as a result of this. I think this is what lawyers call a “slam dunk”.

Poor Constance. She has every right to go to prom with whoever she wants. That girl in her class is a bitch. Obviously Constance is not an attention whore for trying to have her civil rights exercised. I hope Constance escapes that awful place. No one should be subjected to such hateful things. It is sad how badly America is progressing. It’s no wonder that people my age was wanting to leave the country (including me)