Put yourself in the shoes of the children and administrators of Itawamba Agricultural High School for a moment.
So far, administrators canceled prom so that lesbian student Constance McMillen couldn’t attend.
Then, to make it worse, many of the adults and students were in on a prank against Constance in which they sent her to a fake alternative prom.
But now comes a dilemma for them.
Fred Phelps‘ Westboro Baptist Church is coming to town to protest the school’s graduation ceremony.
“[We] will picket the graduation of Itawamba Agricultural High School to remind the parents, teachers and students of this nation that God said ‘Thou shall not lie with mankind, as with womankind, it is abomination’.
“This generation has been raised to believe that they can live for the devil and still go to heaven, that God has no standards and the biggest lie of all — that God loves everyone.”
So, what will the students and administrators do…?
Support Westboro?
Even they couldn’t stoop that low, could they?
Counter-protest Westboro, implicitly supporting Constance?
That goes against their already pathetic morality.
They’re caught between a rock and a hard place… do they continue fighting gay people? Or do they fight against the people fighting gay people, even though they’ve shown they’re not that much better than the Phelps clan?
Still, I hope they take the latter route. Amidst all the shit they’ve flung onto themselves during this whole debacle, this could be at least a slight attempt at making things right.
…
Wait. Update. Just when you were hoping Mississippi could get its head back on straight, they fuck it up again.
Ceara Sturgis is a lesbian high school senior at Wesson Attendance Center who was cut from her yearbook:
“It’s like she’s nobody there, even though she’s gone to school there for 12 years,” [mother Veronica] Rodriguez said. “They mentioned none of her accolades, even though she’s one of the smartest students there with wonderful grades. They’ve got kids in the book that have been busted for drugs. There’s even a picture of one of the seniors who dropped out of school.
“I don’t get it. Ceara is a top student. Why would they do this to her?”
We know why.
For her senior picture, she wore a tuxedo instead of a dress.
So this is the petty way they’re getting back at her — by expunging her from the yearbook. These “adults” are acting petty, immature, and homophobic. And they’re pretending this is all for the best.
Here’s the superintendent:
“We have had our legal counsel research the validity of the position of the School District on this matter,” Copiah County Superintendent Ricky Clopton said in the statement. “We are informed by counsel that this exact issue has been litigated in federal court. The decisions of the federal courts completely support the policy of the district in this regard. It is the desire of the Copiah County School District to inform, first, the patrons of the district, and second, all other interested parties, that its position is not arbitrary, capricious or unlawful, but is based upon sound educational policy and legal precedent.”
“Sound educational policy”? To ostracize a student because she wears different clothing from what you expect?
These are the kinds of lessons the administrators in that district want to pass on to students? If the students are smart, they’ll find a way to honor Ceara in their own way.
They’ll also do what they can to ignore the pathetic, immature “wisdom” of the officials in that district.
(Thanks to Travis for the link)
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