Posted on 03/12/2010 5:05:12 AM PST by NYer
A small town Mississippi High School has decided to cancel its school prom after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) demanded the school permit a female student to wear a tux to the prom and attend with her lesbian partner.
Now the ACLU is suing the school, asking the courts to force the Itawamba County School District to hold the prom and permit 18-year-old Constance McMillen to attend with her lesbian partner and to cross-dress. (Read the lawsuit here)
Bryan Fischer, Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association, told LifeSiteNews (LSN) that he was taken aback by the “hypocrisy” of the ACLU. Fischer said, “ACLU is always telling us how wrong it is to impose our values on others, but here its clear that they are perfectly willing to ram their values down the throats of an entire school district and all of its students.”
“Now they are even trying to get a federal judge to dictate to the school whether they hold a prom or not,” he added.
Besides offending the moral sensibilities of many of the families in the Bible-belt with children attending the school, there are concerns that the wearing of a tuxedo by a girl would contravene the school’s strict dress code, which states, “Clothing and general appearance are not to be the type that would cause a disturbance.” The school’s dress code is admittedly “conservative,” also forbidding skirts above the knee, muscle shirts and exposure of undergarments.
Fischer said that while the ACLU asserts that McMillen is being treated unfairly, she is in fact being given the same right as all other students – to bring an opposite sex date to the prom. A February 5 memo from the school to students noted that each student may invite one guest to the prom and that the guest “must be of the opposite sex.”
What the ACLU fuss over the case suggests, said Fischer, “is that homosexual activists do not want equal rights but special rights.”
Itawamba County School District issued a statement yesterday saying that “due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events” it has decided not to host a prom at the High School this year. “It is our hope that private citizens will organize an event for the juniors and seniors,” the statement added.
The ACLU has previously forced schools to acquiesce to its demands. In November 2009, Tharptown High School in Alabama permitted Cynthia Stewart, 17, to attend the prom with another girl as her ‘date’. The school originally decided to cancel the prom rather than offend moral sensibilities, but capitulated when threatened with legal action by the ACLU.
The precedent on such cases was set in Canada in 2002. 17-year-old Marc Hall insisted that he be allowed to bring his 21-year-old boyfriend to the prom at his Catholic school. When the school refused to permit it, and canceled the prom rather than offend the school’s religious creed, homosexual activists made Hall into a cause célèbre, suing the school for $100,000.
The Ontario English Catholic Teachers Union (OECTA) actively sided with Hall against Catholic education and Church authorities and intervened in the case. Over half the teachers in Monsignor John Pereyma Catholic Secondary School supported Hall’s action.
In an interim ruling on the day of the prom, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert MacKinnon issued an injunction saying that Hall could not be forbidden from attending with his homosexual date and that the school was not permitted to cancel the prom. The prom took place as the court ordered without significant protest from Catholic authorities.
In 2005, Hall dropped his lawsuit and the Catholic school board involved was never able to have a court decide finally on the matter.
The ACLU seems to be following the same method employed by homosexual activists in Canada. The ACLU says it will ask the court in the next few days to grant McMillen a preliminary injunction ordering the school to reinstate the April 2 prom, let McMillen and her girlfriend go to the prom together, and let McMillen wear a tuxedo to the event.
The case, Constance McMillen v. Itawamba County School District, et al., also named as defendants Superintendent Teresa McNeece and Itawamba Agricultural High School Principal Trae Wiygul and Vice Principal Rick Mitchell.
No spokesman from the school district was available for comment on this story.
FANTASTIC POINT!!!
For example: The ACLU, which by the way was founded by communists, ...
Sounds like proms are going the way of the Triceratops.
That would be interesting. Have the prom, but have no one work on it. I mean, could the ACLU then demand involuntary servitude, and impress into service students to work on the decorating committee? Open the school, but provide no more than basic services (someone to open the doors and keep watch for trouble). No music, no decorations, no lighting, no refreshments, nothing. Just the girls dancing alone in the dark (maybe that’s what they want anyway). I wonder if the press would cover the “event”? If they did, I can guess what the spin would be (mean-spirited conservatives make girls dance in the dark).
I disagree that the school should have held the dance and allowed the girl to attend in a tuxedo. A school has the right to set a dress code for its students. It also has the right to set standards of conduct for students, to include not dancing with members of the same sex if it so chooses. Homosexuality is not a protected class under the US Constitution. I don’t know about the constitution of the state in question, but it probably doesn’t include “sexual orientation” as a protected class either.
Homosexuals can take their agenda and shove it. They have no right to force the rest of society to bend to their will. I could just as easily claim a right to polygamy, necrophilia or bestiality. Should the school bend if I want to bring a harem, animal or corpse as my date?
Fact: the vast majority of people are NOT homosexual.
Fact: homosexuality is dysfunctional by nature.
Again, there’s no reason why the rest of society should bend to accept homosexuality as normal. It is homosexuals who should bend to accept the dominant culture. As they say, what they do in privacy is their own business. So keep it PRIVATE, and we’ll all get along just fine.
The strong family unit is the fabric that's held this country together for generations. If the communist can break down the family unit, government can take the place of the spouse. We already see this happening all around us.
Bad company corrupts good character. If the ACLU can influence the other students with their "homosexuals are just like you" propaganda, the strength of the family concept is weakened. Perversion and chaos will follow, opening the door for a political "savior" - who will have no choice but to get involved "to help fix" what was deliberately destroyed.
Maybe private functions, residential communities are our future...courtesy of the media and Demonrat party.
“The ACLU should be abolished.”
Defund/dismantle/disconnect collectives. (we could start with the A’s, ACLU, ACORN, etc; etc;
Who funds the ACLU...
http://morningcoffee.wordpress.com/2006/10/06/who-funds-the-aclu/
Amen.
Building the case for private schooling and homeschooling. Thanks for posting.
>>>Homosexuals can take their agenda and shove it.
It’s not an issue of homosexuality. It’s an issue of a local schoolboard composed of apparently not very bright people who are panicking and shooting themselves in the foot. And in the process punishing the entire portion of the student body who wanted a prom.
“A school has the right to set a dress code for its students. It also has the right to set standards of conduct for students, to include not dancing with members of the same sex if it so chooses.”
Which it obviously had not done. Otherwise they wouldn’t have had to resort to canceling the entire prom. Punishing EVERYBODY just to keep two girls from dancing is absurd overkill.
As I said, handled as poorly as it possibly could have, short of deploying teargas and tasers anyway.
Political correctness was designed to silence anyone from speaking out against the left wing agenda. Political correctness, if you notice, protects ONLY those who are members of a left wing special interest group.
You nailed it. Schools can set reasonable dress codes inside the classroom and in school sponsored activities.
The prom should have been allowed as scheduled.
It was the right thing to do. Should all the students be forced to witness this abomination simply because two demand it? Should a small handfull of sexually dysfunctional people be allowed to change an entire culture in order to serve their own demented fetish?
tlb: “Which it obviously had not done.”
You really should read the article more closely before responding, because it clearly states the school had a strict dress code.
They had to cancel the prom because one person was pushing her agenda on all the other students. Perhaps you should blame the person who actually caused the disruption rather than the school board?
Again, schools have the right to set standards. Students must comply. No one’s constitutional rights were violated here.
>>> Should all the students be forced to witness this abomination simply because two demand it?
Girls dancing together is an abomination ? Just a tip, avoid Rockefeller Center. There are some girls there called Rockettes, and they dance together 50 at a time. Saints preserve us.
BTW, tlb, I might have handled it differently had I been in charge. Even if I agree with you that the board made a bigger deal out of it than necessary, it’s still for them to decide, not you or I. In other words, they have the right to run their school as they see fit, and if that includes not catering to lesbians, so be it.
I have no problem with two girls dancing. Kids do that all the time. The Message here is "Look at us. We're queer, and you're going to look at us and accept our behavior whether you like it or not. We're deciding for you. "
Big difference. Those two girls could have worn a dress like every one else and saved the school from the controversy. Insteasd, controversy was their goal in the first place.
(They can carpet much after the prom where no one would be forced to see it.)
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