Remember Constance McMillen, who wanted to take her girl friend to the prom at Itawamba High School in Fulton, Mississippi? Box Turtle Bulletin has the latest word on the story, which has an unbelievably cruel ending.
McMillen tells The Advocate that a parent-organized prom happened behind her back — she and her date were sent to a Friday night event at a country club in Fulton, Miss., that attracted only five other students. Her school principal and teachers served as chaperones, but clearly there wasn’t much to keep an eye on.
“They had two proms and I was only invited to one of them,” McMillen says. “The one that I went to had seven people there, and everyone went to the other one I wasn’t invited to.”
Last week McMillen asked one of the students organizing the prom for details about the event, and was directed to the country club. “It hurts my feelings,” McMillen says.
To add more cruelty to the situation, the fake prom was apparently meant to be the “freak” prom. In addition to Constance and her girlfriend, two others with learning disabilities, were among the five others who were there. Meanwhile, the rest of the class attended the real prom which was held at a secret location.
How can the students and parents who participated in this cruel hoax live with themselves? I wonder how many are church-going "Christians".
UPDATE: See Oyster's post at Your Right Hand Thief. Oh yeah!
I am still amazed at the the entitlement some people feel that they have the right to be shitheads and still believe they are Christians.
ReplyDeleteThe parents and students who organized the secret prom and the fake prom are top candidates for the hall of shame. I hope that the story gets wide play in the media.
ReplyDeleteI agree. "Cruel" is the operative word here. "Shitheads" a close second.
ReplyDelete"Cruel shitheads" seems a reasonable compromise.
ReplyDeleteI just want you to know, Mimi, that I did worry about using the SH word here. . . But not for long.
ReplyDeleteSusan, sometimes the word is warranted.
ReplyDeleteyuck. what a cruel story, on so many levels...
ReplyDeleteI am long past worrying about the parents and kids who perpetrated this act of Sodomy (in the strictest biblical sense of the word). That's as close as they come to being Biblical. Truly, they have their reward.
ReplyDeleteBut I am also hopeful that McMillen will continue to learn and accept that being queer has its cost: and that one part of maturity is accepting your own value, not rating yourself on how others treat or mistreat you.
We are pathologically fixated on youth and childhood, and yet, we really hate kids.
ReplyDeleteTobias, you're right. We shouldn't spend time worrying about the wretched students and parents.
ReplyDeleteTo go off topic, Grandpère purchased Chef John Folse's most recent cookbook, titled Hooks, Lies, & Alibis. It's a huge coffee table book, large and heavy enough to break a rickety coffee table. Featured in the book is the Oyster Bar Restaurant and its recipe for Grand Central Station Oyster Pan Roast, which brought back fond memories of my dinner with you and James in New York.
Agree with what Susan said and assuming that Fulton, like most of the South, is desperate to bring in outside investment, this will not help any. Wonder what percentage of those attending the "real" prom were kids whose grandparents would have been excluded from the high school through the 60's?
ReplyDeleteRachel Maddow will be on this crowd tonight like white on rice. Don't miss it.
Thanks, Mimi. Fond memories... Look fwd to yr next visit!
ReplyDeleteLapin, I thought of emailing Rachel myself, but I assumed that someone or many have already notified her.
ReplyDeleteThe "good" thing about this (in so far as there is one) is that it has been done under the glare of the media spotlight and the moronic bigots who did it don't seem to quite realise that in the end to the wider world it is them who are left looking like the ones totally in the wrong. Not that that makes it any easier for Constance, who's currently stuck in the middle of it, but with any luck she's going away to university now, or to some other part of the States, anyway, and can leave the whole repulsive crowd behind. I personally think what they intended to be a lesson in teaching "the freaks" not to rock the boat is going to backfire on them. I hope so, anyway. IF THERE IS ANY JUSTICE, IT WILL (God, are You listening???)
ReplyDelete'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if any minister in or near Fulton will speak on this come next Sunday? Most of the nearby churches seem to be Baptist though there is one Catholic church (the nearest TEC church is in Tupelo some 24 miles away as is the nearest UU congregation).
Even though the citizens consider homosexuality a grave sin worthy of shunning and shaming, what grave sin do they think those students with learning disabilities committed? Though it is possible that the other students including the ones with learning disabilities chose which prom to go to, chose to stand with the person shunned.
What is it about the South?
ReplyDeleteConstance was forced to face grim realities at an early age. I pray that the experience makes her stronger and more assured in her sense of herself and that she heals from her hurt.
ReplyDeleteThis just makes me furious!! They are truly just a bunch of bigots.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth, I wish I had an answer to your question. There are times that people in the South can be very welcoming, generous and kind and then there are times people act like the people in Fulton, Miss. I guess they are just ill bred.......
Two Auntees, ill-bred, indeed. But then, there's y'all, and there's me, and we're a little better bred. Thanks be to God.
ReplyDeleteThis is why, when orthodites and fundies yell that we're engaging in some different religion, my response is now, "Praise God!" Because, God knows, whatever has been passing as Christianity has basically given us war, disease, hatred, violence, ignorance and outright murder.
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ReplyDeleteNot just cruel but wicked.
ReplyDeleteSusan, surely you've come across the group Shitheads for Jesus?
I liked what Counterlight said.
ReplyDeleteAnd in my more vindictive and un-Christian moments I want to see a huge Hollywood movie of this in which Constance stars as herself and becomes rich and famous and in which every SH in her town and school is exposed by name.
DP, this is the first I hear of the SFJ group by name, but I've met up with a few of the members before they formally organized and named themselves.
ReplyDeleteNot everyone in the South is like those people.
"What is it about the South?"
ReplyDeleteCalvin Trillin reports his father-in-law as saying, apropos of the Louisiana legislature's antics during Segregation, "This is not the Southern United States, it's Northern Costa Rica". A comparison that I gather is unfair to Costa Rica.