Discrimination against GLBT persons sends me remembering the early days of school desegregation in the Jim Crow South. I was there.
An 18-year-old student says a Mississippi school board that canceled a high school prom did so in retaliation for her request to bring a same-sex date.
The American Civil Liberties Union had demanded that the Itawamba County school district allow senior Constance McMillen to attend with her girlfriend. A school district policy requires that dates be of the opposite sex.
Back when I was a young 'un, a little law called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed.
In my Jim Crow county, three things happened immediately.
One: Some parents organized an all-white private school. Such schools were called "seg academies." Those students who went to the "seg academy" slowly drifted out of the lives of those of us who stayed in the public school.
Two: The public schools started to lurch unwillingly towards racial integration. Fortunately, where I grew up, the leadership recognized that racial segregation of public schools was done for and decided the only choice was to make integration work.
One black girl joined the senior class of the white high school the next year. About a dozen black girls and boys joined the junior class the year after that (my junior year). And so on.
Of course, no white kids were sent to the black high school, not for many years.
And
Three: The prom was canceled.
It remained canceled for years for fear that some little black boy might want to dance with little some white girl.
Parents are still punishing children with the parents' hate and fear.
News link via Eschaton.
Also published at my place.