So far, this sounds so much like the Constance McMillen story: school has a big dance event, young lady wants to go with a date, the school tells her she can’t because her date is also a young lady. This time, though, the story is set in Australia rather than Mississippi. I know there are many fine people in Mississippi, but trust us on this one, you shouldn’t copy the social mores of one of the poorer and more benighted states in the US.

Savannah Supski was told that she couldn’t bring her date, Hannah Williams, to her school’s formal, and the principal is amazingly clueless. She claims she isn’t being homophobic or discriminating against same-sex couples: she insists that it is entirely because they want to “promote a co-educational experience” — in other words, compel all students to follow heteronormative patterns of behavior — and that if they allowed lesbians to participate, “they [the students] would all bring females”. I doubt that the latter excuse is a real risk, unless Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar school is somehow magically transforming every student into a raging lesbian, and even if it were, it’s still not a problem. If every couple who showed up at the dance were a boy and a girl, I can’t quite imagine the principal becoming concerned at all the uniformity and trying to think up rules to break it up with some more sexual diversity.

At least Melbourne hasn’t gone quite as far as Fulton, Mississippi: there they organized a fake prom just for Constance and other outcasts, and held the real prom in a secret location so the lesbos wouldn’t show up. Australians probably aren’t quite that sleazy, yet. I hope it’s not one of their aspirations.