It seems like not much has changed since I was an Indiana high school student:
A team of Valley high schoolers and parents rally for a separate prom that bans gays.
NBC 2’s Paige Preusse reports how Sullivan High School says there’s nothing legally they can do to allow it… several students and parents are taking matters into their own hands.
Several parents, students, and others who believe gays should be banned from the Sullivan High School prom met Sunday at the Sullivan First Christian Church.
“We don’t agree with it and it’s offensive to us,” said Diana Medley.
Their idea is to create their own separate…traditional prom. Students say there are several others from their high school who agree, but are afraid to take a stand.
“If we can get a good prom then we can convince more people to come and follow what they believe,” said student Kynon Johnson.
And now they want everyone to know where they stand.
“We want to make the public see that we love the homosexuals, but we don’t think it’s right nor should it be accepted,” said a local student.
We love you…but you’re offensive, wrong, and shouldn’t be accepted. Um, that’s kind of the antithesis of love, guys.
Diana Medley is a special education teacher in town. She doesn’t believe anyone is born gay.
“I believe that it was life circumstances and they chose to be that way; God created everyone equal,” said Medley.
“Homosexual students come to me with their problems, and I don’t agree with them, but I care about them. It’s the same thing with my special needs kids, I think God puts everyone in our lives for a reason,” said Madley.
“‘So the same goes for gays? Do you think they have a purpose in life?’ No I honestly don’t. Sorry, but I don’t. I don’t understand it. A gay person isn’t going to come up and make some change unless it’s to realize that it was a choice and they’re choosing God,” said Medley.
Your gay students have no purpose in life? That’s how you “care” about someone? This is how you talk about your students who are coming to you for fucking help? I can only hope that she’s not pushing her “you must choose God” bullshit on the special ed students trapped in her classroom.
Several local pastors support the separate prom movement.
“Christians have always been prepared for a fight. Jesus gave us armor for the front, not the back; we’re not running anymore,” said Bill Phegley with Carlisle Church.
Are you fucking kidding me? This is all about how the poor little Christians are being persecuted when you’re the ones banning LGBT students?!
If the thought of a girl dancing with a girl or a guy dancing with a guy unnerves you that much, that’s you’re fucking problem. Don’t go to prom. You don’t get to ban people because they give you the willies because we have separation of church and state in this country, which means you can keep your stupid fucking ass-backwards delusions to yourself and not force it on your fellow students.
Yeah, I’m mad. This pisses me off more than usual. You know why? Because I spent my high school years desperately defending my LGBT friends. When I overheard people saying “that’s gay” as an insult or calling someone a fag, I was the first to step in and tell them that it was offensive and unacceptable. When I was standing in lunch line and people would be talking about how disgusting my lesbian friends were, oblivious that I was friends with those ‘fucking dykes,” you know what I did? I spoke up. I told them they were fucking bigots and if they had a problem with my friends, they had a problem with me. And they shrunk into silenced fear in front of me, only to spread rumors that I was obviously a lesbian throughout the whole school. As if that would insult me.
When my lesbian friend wanted to start a Gay Straight Alliance to combat the constant bullying she faced from other students, I was the VP so I could do everything to help her organize. And she needed all the help she could get, since no one else wanted to help her. No teachers would be the adviser for the club because it was career suicide. The principal wouldn’t allow us to be an official group because we were “non-academic” and if he let us in, he’d have to let in other non-academic clubs like a “Nazi group” (his example). This was despite the fact that my high school already had plenty of non-academic clubs.
When my friend’s mom threatened to sue their asses off since what they were doing was blatantly illegal, the principal eased off…a little. He let us meet in a side room of the library, but wouldn’t let us be an official club. He let us put up flyers advertising our meetings, but the flyers couldn’t contain the words “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” “GLBT,” “sex,” or “sexual orientation” because they were “inappropriate for high school students.” When we came to our meetings, most of the time the librarians purposefully locked us out so we wouldn’t be able to meet. When we complained, nothing happened. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, on the other hand, got plenty of meeting space and was allowed to freely advertise throughout the school despite technically being “unofficial.”
And when prom rolled around, they wouldn’t sell my friend and her girlfriend a couple’s ticket because those were only for “real couples” – aka a boy and a girl – because they didn’t want two female friends buddying up to just get a discounted rate. Instead they would have to buy more expensive individual tickets if they wanted to go, and would not get any of the couple ticket benefits (a balloon with your names on it, a couple photo, and basic fucking dignity).
Instead they told the school to go fuck themselves and went to a Star Wars convention, where they were accepted and had a blast.
My lesbian friends were the lucky ones. They were able to be out because they had supportive parents, and also because lesbianism is often more accepted. Especially when you happen to be really attractive lesbians, so all the bigoted straight dudes in the school can sexually objectify you instead of only bullying you. But my gay male friends? They were all hidden in the closet, and terrified at being outed. They might have been out to a couple close friends, but I found so many of my classmates coming out once they had escaped to college. It made me sadder. If I had known what those people were feeling in high school, I would have been an ally to them too.
And you know why I’m still so angry? Because even though I graduated 7 years ago, and even though students have been desperately trying to form a GSA every one of those years, they are still being stonewalled by the school administration. There’s still no GSA and students are still constantly bullied because of their sexual orientation. And this is in a town that’s part of the “liberal” part of Indiana.
And the Christian students are the ones who are being persecuted?
Why did I do all of these things? Why did I care so passionately about gay rights even though it didn’t personally affect me? Not because my parents “brainwashed” me to support gay rights or subscribe to some liberal agenda. We never discussed the topic, honestly. My parents just taught me to be a person who is kind to others. That’s all.
It saddens me that these Christian students have been taught to hate instead.
Keep fighting the good fight, Jen. It’s much appreciated.
So by saying: “I think God puts everyone in our lives for a reason,”
She really means ” I think God puts everyone in our lives for a reason, unless I disagree with them.”
Facepalm
The whole prom culture just seems weird to me as a non-american, why on earth is there such a focus on couples, with only the right kind of couples (boy-girl) approved of? My 6th Form Leavers Ball was the closest we came, and tickets were sold singly (had to be purchased by a student, but non students were allowed to come) so you went ‘with’ whoever you wanted. Most people just went with friends!
Not that the bullying situation was much better at my school, it didn’t have any religious overtones but very few gay people came out while I was there. At least teachers were supportive for the most part, I can’t imagine how horrible it is to be bullied by the people who are supposed to help you, on top of the crap from other students.
What a bunch of absolutely disgusting people; I’m so glad I don’t live among them. Here in Portland, we only have to put up with the occasional sick bigot cake baker.
Sullivan is about halfway between where I grew up and where my wife grew up so I know the area. I wish I could say this surprises me but it doesn’t. It’s a very small town so I’m willing to bet that all of this is to purposely exclude just one or two couples that they feel like bullying. I feel bad for those kids and I hope they get out of Sullivan as quick as possible.
When I saw the article about this on Thinkprogress I initially read “school wants gay-free prom” as “school wants free gay-porn” I thought well, thats definitely a different direction to go. I was disappointed when I figured out my mistake.
That is so disappointing. My daughter is looking forward to her prom this year (when I was her age it was called “grad”) and is taking her best friend. It shouldn’t make any difference to the school which students are dating and which aren’t. And, for irony, our province has been having teacher strikes and the regular prom’s been cancelled. So daughter and her friends are all attending the GSA prom.
And the special education teacher is horrible!
Appropriate cartoon
(Speaking of which, is there anyway to embed images?)
Special needs kids aren’t people in their own right; they’re props in the Diana Medley Show.
‘god puts everyone in our lives for a reason'(and i know what it is!)? so not only does an all powerful superbeing exist, but it, and the world it created (around you, of course) is entirely for your benefit? holy fuck thats some scary shit.
Segregated proms?
I’m so confused and disoriented. How can this be 1958 if I have access to the Internet? Does not compute…
Hey there, Ouabache. I bet I know where you grew up, since that’s awfully similar to my elementary school’s spelling….
Anyway, I can confirm Sullivan is is a primarily rural county full of the culturally-backward. I’m not surprised this is happening there. Meanwhile, here in Kentucky, a small coal mining town in the mountains just passed an equality ordinance that includes gays. And yet Hoosiers give us shit.*
*Note – originally from Indiana
I still don’t understand why anybody would want to go to prom at all, but if they have it they might as well make everyone welcome. The reason I didn’t go was because mostly people at prom were the assholes I did my best to avoid all day every day for like 4 years (not including middle school. Or grade school. Or pre-school.)
Why would I pay to hang out with them in my free time? Why would anyone? And be chaperoned by teachers I mostly disliked and be forced to listen to music I hated? As much as I hated church then, I think I would have rather done that than go to prom. *
And why are they giving discounted rates to couples anyway? It just seems creepy.
*Ok granted, I was an especially surly teenager who thought anyone who went to prom was kind of a loser. But now that I’ve aged and mellowed slightly, I’m really glad to see kids (and former kids like Jen and her friends!) who would feel as unwelcome at such events as I did at least trying to make it a better thing for everyone (except maybe the bigots). Makes me wish I had cared to do more than give them the proverbial finger and refuse to participate :/
But there is a counter campaign! Should we do bets? Cause I’d put my money that the bigots end up having their own special prom. We could pool and donate the money to a GSA group in the area no matter what happens :)
I was glad to get out of Indiana for pretty much this type of nonsense. Of course, I ended up in Missouri, so not much of an improvement.
I admire your dedication to this cause, Ms. McCreight, and I do not envy anyone who is not hetero and who is caught in that situation. I hope a GSA group can be created, somehow, even in that unfriendly environment.
Amazing how the priest see this as a brave act of moral courage, rather than a cowardly act exposing a deep fear of difference and sexuality. How insecure do you have to be, that you are so freaked out that two men or women might dance together near you, that you would organise an entirely separate event? Admire your dedication and I hope this gets lots of attention and these bigots are publicly shamed for the prejudice.
All I can say is how times have changed for the better if this is the sort of thing we are outraged about. And don’t think I am saying that any of this outrage is inappropriate. Having an alternative prom is stupid, what Jen went through in supporting a GSA was stupid.
The idea that gay couples would attend an HS prom was simply unthinkable when I was in school in the ’80s. Being out was simply not an option. Well, somehow my friend Tony managed it sort of, but he was a unique case. My date to the prom was a lesbian that I had a “beard” relationship with. She appreciated the cover and I liked being able to see other girls. It was pretty unusual back then that person would even KNOW that any other person was gay, excepting Tony, of course.
So yeah, this alternative prom plan is silly and hateful. But the fact that they are choosing to exclude themselves from the official prom rather than it simply being the case there was no way in hell a gay couple would show up at a prom smells like sweet victory to me. Let them exclude themselves, diminish in numbers, and fade into irrelevance.
Note that the indications are that this school administration is accepting of gay couples at the official prom.
Which is why the bigots are trying to organize their own private hate prom.
So, that is mild progress.
Now do they want to ban gays from just the prom for white students or both that & the prom for black/hispanic/Asian/those-people students?
Looked at this way, it is a sign of how much things have changed.
As Greg in PDX notes (Hi fellow PDXer), it’s also very regional. I went ot my prom in drag, and no one but the annoying christers gave me any trouble about it, although I did get a lot of people who didn’t recognize me at all until I said something. That was in Eugene, not PDX, but there’s a fair amount of cultural similarity.
I guess the fortunate thing here is that this is just some splinter bigot group’s pissing and moaning instead of official school policy, which is to allow any couples in (there’s a follow-up story via WTHI-TV, but I don’t have the link handy). Still, this kind of attitude, and the way the state seems happy to just be mediocre and rot, make me glad I left.
Not directly related to your blog post, and I realize, Jen, that you don’t have control over the advertising on your blog, but as I read this blog post I glanced at the top of the page to an advertisement for The Master of Arts in Biblical Theology at John Paul, the Great Catholic University.
Thank you for writing this! Cuts through all the arguments to the most basic thing.
I remember this as well from growing up in Indiana and going to high school there. Unfortunately, I was one of the Christians. Fortunately, I was one of the liberal ones that had gay friends and didn’t discriminate against them.
It’s a shame it still hasn’t changed and another reminder of why I don’t want to go back to Indiana. I haven’t checked in on anything like this from my home state in about 10 years. I feel like I should now. Thanks for the wake-up call!
The “God Loves Everyone Front for Perpetual Hatred” guys never cease to amaze me. Kind of makes me wonder if a logic class should be taught earlier, I didn’t encounter one until college.
About the blog ads, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. The space is chosen and defined by the people at freethoughtblogs and if the god people want to advertise there, they pay the same price as anyone else would. It is an entirely appropriate method of proselytizing that does not offend basic etiquette. It contrasts favorably with other methods such as this prom thing – really you’d just do something like this if doing it was the goal. These Sullivan clowns don’t care about the event, they’re just aiming to spread the bigotry by raising a fuss.
It’s interesting how much things changed in the 10 or so years from when I went to high school in Indiana (albeit in one of the more liberal areas—still Indiana, but maybe not as bad as Sullivan and ilk) to when Jen did. There wasn’t even any discussion of a GSA, no one had even conceived of that being something you could do. There were no out gay kids at school, and I was getting harassed for being gay despite being deeply, deeply closeted myself. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
As for people saying that the bigots staging an alternate prom is a victory: yes, it is, but a small one. If everyone goes to the alternate prom, nothing’s really changed at all. In areas of the South, people have been running whites-only proms for decades, ever since the end of legal segregation. Private, bigoted proms can persist.
Wonderful post. Based on the video, the church meeting space appears to hold about 30 people. Per the interwebs, the school has around 600 students.
Using meatball math and a fair number of (hopefully reasonable) assumptions, the percentage of seniors interested in—or being coerced into—attending the straights-only prom would be somewhere between 10 and 20.
Not horrible; but not great either.
The Church hosting the straight-only “traditional values” prom has gotten so much hate mail that it took down it’s web site and disconnected their fax machine. That’s according to CBS’ WISH-TV Channel 8 from Indianapolis at about 7:45 or 8 am this morning.
It seems to me that the ones who cry wolf at gay marriage “ruining the fabric of society” are the ones who wouldn’t bat an eyelash if a woman was in an abusive marriage or an arranged marriage. Gay and lesbian marriages are now banned in California, which means that murderers Scott Peterson and Charles Manson can get married in California, but not monogamous, consenting gays and lesbians over 21 who never hurt anybody. There’s something wrong with that. We need a law to prevent murderers from getting married and “ruining the fabric of society.”
Your old principal sounds like he has strange issues for comparing a gay group to a Nazi group. The Nazis murdered 9 million. 2/3 of murder victims were Jews. The rest were intellectuals, gypsies, gays, lesbians, prostitutes, and whoever else the Nazis misunderstood as undesirable.
I don’t understand why a guy would love another guy, but that doesn’t mean that I subjugate or dehumanize them. Gay marriage should be legal in all 50 states because every time that 2 monogamously gay men marry, it frees up 2 chicks who are more fish in the sea for me!
Matt, you made a couple of completely valid points –
and
and it’s great that you said those things, especially the first. But you snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by ending up with a bit of “humour” (at least, I presume that was intended to be light-hearted) that was so stupidly offensive.
Same-sex marriage should be legal everywhere because any freely consenting adults who want to form a household and celebrate declaring same in the eyes of society should have the right to do so. And if every same-sex couple in the world who want to marry did so, it wouldn’t change your attractiveness or lack thereof – be it great or non-existent, I neither know nor care – one iota. Honestly, “free up”? Gay men being able to marry “frees up” women? (the women in your scenario have no agency themselves, clearly) You’re in not-even-wrong territory there, mate.
Well, not only as an Austrian I consider the comparison of gays to nazis somewhat offensive…. Though, I’d rather meet an SS-Obersturmbannführer in person than that teacher. With the SS-guy I’d still have some freedom of action which wouldn’t be questioned to closely by the courts.
That said, I’m starting to understand why in the US the new tradition is getting a high powered rifle an climbing a bell tower. Honestly, do these people ever read what the say? And, can the read at all. Fun fact: There’s not one text in the new testament which explicitly bans gays or lesbians from anything. Well, there doesn’t seem to be one about not raping kids, either, otherwise cardinals wouldn’t condone it.
And if the fabric of this society is that rotten, well, burn it ….
The real objection, I suspect (and Mano Singham here on FTB concurs) is the “ick” factor. Unfortunately, I can’t find the video on YouTube, but in October 2009, the BBC hosted a debate on gay marriage, moderated by the venerable David Dimbleby, and with the (dangerously) right wing MEP Nick Griffin and then-Archibishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, against, and the Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone and long-time Gay Rights activist Peter Tatchell, for the motion. Well, Dimbleby started by asking Rowan Beardie why he opposed gay marriage and Beardie started to flannel about “biblical definitions” when, out of left field, Griffin suddenly exclaimed, “Look! The sight of two guys kissing is creepy!!!”
And there you have the real objection; “teh gay is icky”. All else is smoke and mirrors.
Interestingly, the same arguments were made half a century earlier against interracial marriage…
3 days ago, according to ABC’s WRTV channel 6 out of Indianapolis, Diana Medley has been suspended indefinitely.
Don’t click on this foul-mouthed link if you are at work or at the computer lab. I don’t know if you will find it absolutely hilarious or just plain disturbing. From about 4:16 to about 4:55 at Youtube , a strange Indiana pastor with strange grammar said, “Christians has always been prepared for a fight. But Jesus Christ give us armor for the front, not the back. We don’t run it no more.” WHAT!? How is he a legit pastor? Oh, and Diana Medley’s remark is in the same video if you didn’t see her on the news.
I don’t want to plagiarize post somebody’s comment, but look at the “dadgumhippies • a year ago” comment at The Atlantic Wire. He (she?) sounds like he almost sums it up well, reads a lot, and almost sounds like a Sociology, Anthropology, or History student to me. I have never heard that about gays in Sparta though. There were lesbians in ancient China and an old National Geographic had an article including that ancient China had concubines. Even though I haven’t read The Bible cover to cover in 15 years because I’d get practically nothing out of reading it a second time, David and/or Solomon had 700 to 1,000 wives, prostitutes, concubines, or mistresses in The King James Version at 1 Kings 11:3. David committed adultery with another man’s wife named Bathsheba and arranged for the man to be killed on the battlefield. Some say that his 700 to 1,000 lovers may have been propaganda. Here’s a video about Biblical family values that’s absolutely hilarious or just plain disturbing at Betty Bowers. It’s strange how little people know about the Bible before they jump to a generalized conclusion like, “Biblical Marriage = 1 man + 1 woman.”
Last year, I listened to a podcast where an irrational, dysfunctional, hill-billy woman was saying that her 3 ex-husbands think that gays marrying are against the sanctity of marriage. She was real instead of a comedian.
Rich televangelists pick and choose what parts of The Bible to follow. They don’t notice or don’t care to mention the passage of, “It’s easier to send a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the kingdom of Heaven.”
I was listening to the radio when Wanda Sykes or somebody that I had heard of at about the same time as Wanda Sykes said something almost like, “The Bible forbids 2 men to lay together, but not 2 women. There’s some freaky stuff in The Bible because The Bible was written by men.” That year I didn’t know yet that she’s a lesbian. I suppose somebody could have mentioned that The Bible doesn’t forbid female nudism either because it was written by men. We need a Psychology or Sociology student to explain why homophobic teenage boys fantasize about being in bed with 2 nude lesbians at the same time. I am not making this up and if you are reading this from another country, some American teenage boys are that strange or juvenile. They are like the guys in middle or high school that you want to get away from.
“Scientists try to cure AIDS, Cancer, Sickle Cell Anemia, Diabetes, and other diseases. Christians try to “cure” gays, lesbians, and transvestites.” That’s just sad and I don’t even remember where I learned this quote from.
If I can be serious now, I think that I want to go to interlibrary loan to see if they have “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo.” Zimbardo sounds familiar and we studied him. The fact that The Westboro Baptist Church or kids hate gays and tell them to go to Hell just because older people or authority figures tell them to says a lot about human behavior. The fact that any group of people tells any group of people to burn in Hell forever says a lot about human behavior.
Something is weird and my computer is slowing down. The Betty Bowers link in my above post didn’t show in the html tag. It should be at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw
Sarras, thanks for typing, “That said, I’m starting to understand why in the US the new tradition is getting a high powered rifle and climbing a bell tower.” I suppose you mean Whitman at the Bell Tower: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/mass/whitman/index_1.html I found the link at about the same time that I was taking Criminology. According to the episode of NOVA from 4 days ago, he included in his will or suicide note that he wanted his brain cut up, and he was found to have a nickel-sized brain tumor against his amygdala, an emotional center in the brain. NOVA is an American show about Science, Math, Technology, and History, and I don’t know if it’s as popular in your homeland of Austria.
It is incredibly discouraging to read this is the state of affairs at your old high school and one more example why so many people see such hypocrisy in a lot of Christ followers (who don’t really follow but rather use Christ’s name to further a spiteful agenda). The principal sounds emotionally and developmentally arrested at about 13 (no offense to the many bright 13 yr olds). Have they contacted ACLU? Sounds like a lawsuit needs filed and if a public school all these students and parents may be guilty of hate crimes.
That makes no sense. If it was a choice, why would they need to “realize” it? And who would choose to get shit from them? Why would someone /choose/ to be attracted to guys or girls if they did not find them attractive? What are the perks of being gay?
Furthermore, if they think it’s a choice, can they explain exactly how to switch your orientation? Or can they not choose it, but its just gay people who can? Hmm.
I was waiting to pick up my daughter at a high school here in Kentucky. “Here” being a region where the average income is hovering at or below poverty lines. “Here” where bullying isn’t just kid-vs-kid, but parents-vs-other-people’s-kids.
Anyway, as I was waiting, the school let out. A lesbian couple walked by, holding hands. They weren’t acting nervous about it. They weren’t acting defensive. No one seemed to care. In my youth, such a scene would’ve been the source of so much borderline abuse. Laughter, pointing, whispering.
That no one seemed to take this couple’s actions as at all out of the ordinary was an awesome thing.
That my daughter later decided to use a required argumentative speech topic as an opportunity to speak out for marriage equality was even more awesome. (She spent her elementary school years quoting Rush Limbaugh along with my father in law. She’s grown SO MUCH!)
Wow. That’s insane. I totally agree with you. Even though I honestly don’t know what my parents’ positions are on those who are L, G, B, or T is, I honestly do think that homo- and tran- sexuals deserve to be treated equally. I am a Roman Catholic. My church (I’m in N. VA) kind of tries to brainwash people about this kind of stuff. But even without the church, the whole idea is pretty controversial. Thankfully, my school is pretty liberal. We have an LGBT club, and back in September, there was an LGBT week. I fully support homosexuals and transexuals.
I realize that this is kind of a dead thread,but i figured i”d post this anyway.
About three weeks ago my youngest son and I were talking, he told me that his friend had come out to him. I asked him what his response was. Inside my head was a storm of trepidation…one of those moments that makes a parents blood run cold. A moment of truth.
“That’s cool,ok by me…doesn’t change anything.”
The kid did good.(as well as a thirteen year old could be expected to)
I reflected on my time in the same school system thirty years before. No one would have come out in that climate.
Times and attitudes do change and little boys can make their dads tear up with pride.
Keep up the good fight.
Hate mail as in, “You’re acting like bigots”?
It’s the faux free-speech rallying cry all over again: “People are interfering with our right to discriminate and threaten!”