Posted on 03/28/2010 2:19:03 PM PDT by madprof98
COCHRAN — Derrick Martin had a question he couldn’t answer, so he did what any 18-year-old would. Fingers tapping, he logged on to his computer last December and Googled the following words, which changed his life:
“I’m gay. Can I go to the prom?”
He can, and will. But those eight little words have done more than ensure the high school senior can take a same-sex date to Bleckley High School’s prom next month.
Seeking that answer has thrust him to the forefront of a national discussion. It’s touched off heated discussions in beauty salons and restaurants here and elsewhere, and made this small middle Georgia town a focal point in the debate over gay rights. Some applaud him for bravery. Others say his soul’s in peril.
All he really wanted, he says, was a night to remember.
“I didn’t anticipate this,” Derrick said earlier this week, a few days after news got out that he would bring his boyfriend, a young man from Tift County, to his prom. “I thought this might run on the second page of the paper.”
Instead, he’s Derrick Martin, sudden celebrity. As he sat on a bench underneath a bare oak tree outside a Bleckley school building, a Ford pickup, kids hanging out of its cab, zipped by. Derrick! Derrick! young voices belled.
A Honda sped past. It sprouted arms from every window. Hey, Derrick!
Derrick sighed. “If I could have just brought him without asking, I would have done that.”
‘You better sit down’
Derrick Martin is young enough that his facial hair is still spotty; like the rest of him, it’s not done growing. His 160 pounds are stretched across a frame nudging 6-foot-3. He is as long and narrow as a church pew, and only slightly more comfortable discussing all that’s happened since his Google query.
As he searched Web sites, Derrick came across the legal defense site for the national gay-rights organization Lambda. A representative of the group told him that if a school system didn’t have rules forbidding same-sex dates, then Derrick likely could bring his boyfriend.
“They did warn me that the school system could cancel the prom,” he said.
That wasn’t just conjecture. School officials in Itawamba County, Miss., canceled a prom recently after 18-year-old Constance McMillen said she wanted to bring a girl to her school’s April 2 dance. The American Civil Liberties Union, claiming the school board violated her right to free expression, has demanded that McMillen be allowed to attend.
Nothing like that occurred in January, when Derrick requested a meeting with Bleckley High Principal Michelle Masters. Because his date isn’t a Bleckley student, school rules required Derrick to fill out a form identifying him. He decided to check with Masters first.
“You better sit down,” he began.
Masters took the request to the Bleckley County Board of Education. When the board next met, it also discussed another Martin — Derrick’s father, Ray, a math teacher at the high school. Board members named him Bleckley’s teacher of the year.
Then they turned to his son. In early March, the board announced that Derrick could bring his boyfriend to the prom. School Superintendent Charlotte Pipkin, who declined comment, earlier this week released a two-paragraph statement.
The board decision, the statement said in part, “is not an endorsement of any particular practice or life style, but rather recognition of the legal environment in which public schools operate today.”
Bleckley High School, home of the Royals, would hold its prom April 17, as originally planned. The junior class would plan it, as well as decorate the school gym. This is a BHS tradition.
But tradition, people soon learned, was about to get a test.
A town debates
Cochran, about two hours south of Atlanta, is a confluence of U.S. and state roads that come together for a few blocks before fanning out again across rolling land that yields peanuts and cotton. A museum near the police department is dedicated to those agricultural staples.
About 5,200 people live here. Wednesdays at noon, much of downtown adheres to a practice that has just about gone the way of the mule. Stores close. People head to the municipal golf course, visit Macon to shop, or catch up on the latest events.
A lot of catching up these days focuses on Derrick’s decision, and how it reflects change — not just in Cochran, either.
Barbara Anderson’s shears snipped quickly, as if they were as indignant as she.
“I think they [the school board] ought to do like that other state and cancel the prom,” said Anderson, who owns a styling salon here. “They won’t allow us to have God in school, but they’ll allow this?”
Across the street, waitress Victoria Cagle took a break after the lunch rush. She is a 2009 Bleckley grad who hopes to attend nearby Middle Georgia College and teach high school biology.
“I think what they [the board] did was the right thing,” said Cagle, 19. “I think what he’s doing is awesome.”
Merchant Jason Ledbetter isn’t so sure.
“It bothers me,” said Ledbetter, 47, part-owner of a downtown music store. “By him doing that, it shows we accept it.”
Business partner Kenny Laney wasn’t as ruffled as Ledbetter. “It’s like an inter-racial couple,” said Laney, 54. “I thought we would have gotten over that by now, and gotten over this, too.”
The boys may face a divine reckoning, said resident Faye Ortiz. “What they do is up to them,” said Ortiz, 45, who recently moved back to central Georgia from Texas. “They’ve got to answer to God.”
Dealing with fallout
Opinions aside, Derrick’s action has come at a cost. He’s no longer living at home. Staying there, he said, became intolerable as news spread that he was taking his boyfriend to the prom. For now he’s staying with a friend, the girl he escorted to last year’s prom.
“She’s my best friend,” he said.
He also has friends who are gay, Derrick said. He expected some of them to stand with him when he took his request to school officials.
“I thought I would have had a little bit of backup,” he said, disappointment creeping in his voice. “But it’s just me.”
His boyfriend, who’s also 18 and a school senior, has not made any public comments. Derrick’s parents are remaining silent, too.
So Derrick talks. He talks about school. Kids there have known he is gay for a while. Most of them, he thinks, are on his side.
He talks about work. He is an after-school tutor for elementary and middle school kids at risk of not passing state tests.
He talks about the future. He’s planning to attend Georgia Southern University, which he said has given him a scholarship in recognition of his 92.5 average. He wants to go to law school, maybe someday become the state or U.S. attorney general. “That would just be so awesome.”
He also thinks about what has happened these past few months.
“I only wanted to be honest,” he said. Now, he feels an obligation. If he has to be the face of gay rights, OK.
A big lesson to learn from eight little words.
A related post on this story appeared here. That article mentions that the boy's dad, who teaches at his school, has been very embarrassed by the turn of events, so much so that he put the kid out of the house--whereupon the "best friend" girl took him in.
Naturally, this makes him a persecuted minority to the mainstream-media brains at the AJC, who have made this their Sunday feature. In my mind, he's just another punk kid who is doing his best to hurt people who love him.
18-year-old
He is an adult.
The gay and lesbian prom dates have garnered a great deal of attention in 2010 and nest year you can expect thousands upon thousands to show-up at their prom with a same sex date and schools are going to be powerless to stop this trend.
How is it obvious? Do you have access to Google's logs? If so, could you delete my search request from about 11 PM last night?
Why even invite the big stink? Let the kid take whatever “date” he wants. If they start making a scene, address the incident exactly as you would if it were an opposite-sex couple. To do anything else is to invite legal action and give the homofascists ammo against us.
It won’t be the worst thing that happens at prom. Trust me.
Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed today. But since you asked: It is obvious because young Derrick, the gay kid, ALREADY went to the prom the year before. He knew he could go. If he asked Google anything, it must have had to do with finding an advocacy group to defend his "right" to take a guy instead of a girl this year.
My, have times changed.
In my day, schools discouraged opposite-sex couples from having sex on prom night and today they are condoning sex between opposite sex unmarried teenage couples.
Yeah, he never imagined this would blow up. And he must really hate the new found fame.
Sorry to shout, but, EVERYBODY PLEASE start telling the GLBT "community" that IT IS NOTHING LIKE interracial romance between males and females! Nothing at all.
It will interesting to see how public schools end up dealing with this issue down the road. The two choices seem to be A) Allow gay couples to attend or B) stop holding prom as an official school tradition.
For now, I suspect most schools will grudgingly accept option A , though some schools may find a way to “privatize” the prom and get out from under the issue.
Long term...I really think that, for better or worse, you’ll see option A become the standard for more and more schools. While it’s not exactly reached mainstream acceptability, homosexuality doesn’t carry the same level of stigma it did 20 or 30 years ago, especially among younger people. I just don’t foresee that trend reversing in the years ahead.
Celebrating perversion.
I like to believe the best about people’s motives, but gay activists make that very, very difficult. Even if they aren’t doing something for political gain, it looks for all the world like they are.
I don’t think it’s wise for schools to treat same-sex couples differently from opposite-sex couples. However, that’s not to say I admire what this kid is doing. if he simply wanted to bring his boyfriend to the prom without raising a stink, he should have done just that—brought his date as a “friend,” as he says he had no trouble doing the previous year, without even bringing up his sexuality. Then they get to go to the prom together, the school officials get to believe the event is Biblically sound, and everyone’s happy.
But it’s not enough to be gay—you have to be a d*ck about it, too.
I’m thinking we should end high school at age 15...
It strikes me that Derrick and his advocates (including the newspaper) are making a statement: "I don't just want acceptance. Instead, I want acclaim. In other words, I want a parade, and I expect you to be right there cheering. And by the way, if you don't, I'll call you names."
the last thing this country needs is another gay lawyer
Really, is it any wonder that the nation has fallen?
“Why even invite the big stink? Let the kid take whatever “date” he wants. If they start making a scene, address the incident exactly as you would if it were an opposite-sex couple.”
+1
Is he a student? Yes. Do he and his parents pay the various and sundry taxes that support the school system? Yes. Is it a non-sectarian, public school? Yes.
Then he has the right to take whomever meets the non-student approval criteria established by the school to the prom. Case closed.
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More nauseating spew about the punk "gay" 18 year old who is doing everything he can for publicity, to look like a martyr and promote the homosexual agenda.
Homosexuals are made, not born, and can change if they want to. There are countless numbers of former homosexuals who no longer identify as homosexual. If homosexuals just wanted to be left alone, they'd keep their disgusting habits and proclivities private. THEY DO NOT WANT TO KEEP THEIR PRIVATE LIVES PRIVATE.
They have said numerous times that their goal is to remake society - change it - turn the entire country into their personal "gay friendly" rest area.
And IF they accomplish this they will start prosecuting heterosexuals.
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