After this town has shit all over her repeatedly she still shines brightly by being happy and pleased for the two learning disabled kids that were at her prom.

That town could learn a lot from her if they'd just open their damn eyes and ears and actually THINK.

Yeah - some of these "adults" could learn a lot from her example and outlook.

Good god. That is so low, I... hell, I'm speechless, too. The parents that did this, that organized this fakery are just... despicable, utterly heartless and horrible people. If karma is real, they'll pay. This will come back to haunt them somehow. I hope.

The amount of petty, small-minded cruelty and vindictiveness that goes on in some (not all) small towns never fucking ceases to amaze me. I hope this girl gets out of there soon, scrapes the shit off her shoes, and never looks back.

There's so much about this story I don't understand. For starters, how many students are in her class?

I hated to be a cynic, but I pretty much saw this coming. I was really encouraged when I heard that Ms. McMillen had actually been invited to the private prom - I just assumed that the whole reason for the private prom was that parents could exclude her without suffering any consequences.

Reading the coverage on Jezebel- someone points out the irony of a school in the Bible belt holding a prom on Good Friday.

This is why bright, creative minds leave small towns and flee to the cities. I went to college in Montana and every LGBT person I knew couldn't wait to get the fuck out of there. The people who are left are mostly those who couldn't hack it in big cities or find them too liberal, and the cycle repeats itself.

With all the polarization, the demonizing of one side by the other, etc etc. . .well for me this makes it worse. I hate those parents. I cannot imagine spending a minute in their shoes.

And I am surprised that these girls did not have at least one or two allies that would have broken away from the crowd and supported them.

According to Wikipedia, there are about 3,500 students, so the graduating class is going to be pretty damn big. Like Dan, I'm amazed that no one tipped her off. What a bunch of assholes. More info via Wiki here.

I feel sick that people could act like that. Especially when it's parents demonising children. Revolting.

They showed part of the Civil Rights movement documentary "Eyes on the Prize" the other day. The footage of ordinary white citizens making blatant comments about the blacks in their communities shocked me, as they did 20 years ago when the documentary first aired. (Some were from scary KKKers, but there was one that stuck out in my mind, a perfectly ordinary high school girl from Little Rock who said politely, "no, I think it's better that they stay on their own side of town.")

Even 20 years ago we all watched this and said, "wow, how could people be so blatantly stupid and hateful on national television? What planet were they from?" Now I understand it a little better, and I hope 20 years from now people will look back in the same way and wonder, "what the hell were they thinking?!"

someone points out the irony of a school in the Bible belt holding a prom on Good Friday

It's my understanding that evangelicals (i.e. the majority of bible belt worshippers) don't really observe Good Friday all that much. It's considered too Catholic. (I could be way wrong about this, but I'm just judging by my experience growing up in a region dominated by Southern Baptists.)

God, that is fucking stupid. How exactly would it hurt anyone to have this girl and her date at their precious little prom?

Two students with learning difficulties were among the seven people at the country club event, McMillen recalls. "They had the time of their lives," McMillen says. "That's the one good thing that come out of this, [these kids] didn't have to worry about people making fun of them [at their prom]."

This makes me sad and angry at the same time. And proud of Constance McMillen - she sounds like an amazing young woman.

Completely off-topic, but Atom Eyes, you've kind of answered a question that I was asking my facebook friends the other day (brought up Catholic, wondering why many of my southern protestant friends weren't as in to Good Friday as I remember being when a kid. didn't know whether it was cultural, i.e. NZ vs USA or a difference of religion)

Parents can be as petty and nasty as kids, and that makes it worse. It reminds me to a degree of the mother who created a fake MySpace profile with her daughter to mock a neighbor. You hope that parents can stand above high school drama, but I realize (but don't support the fact) that teh gays scare people of all ages into doing terrible things.

I wonder why the whole 'partner' thing at a prom has to be an explicitly sexually-cast thing at all. So they're bringing someone of any gender, or dressing in a tux as a woman, who cares? It's only once you put that sexual or gendered angle on it that this whole thing starts exciting people on both sides of the issue.

In my day (that phrase makes me sound old, doesn't it?), there were groups of guys and girls that went to the prom "stag", without official dates. I knew of no one who was "out" back then, but then again maybe they were and I was just too oblivious to notice.

My son graduated high school last year. His date fell through and he ended up going with two friends and their dates in a group of five (appropriate really since he introduced both couples). It's a little odd to me that the best pictures he has of his prom are pics of him with two other boys. But it is what it is.

Hey, I went to junior prom with another girl, and we weren't lesbians. The couples price is always cheaper than the 2 singles tickets, which is a problem in and of itself.

(We had really cute pictures taken and went out for Denny's afterward. She ended up leaving with this guy she liked.)

It seems like the sensible solution is to just sell single tickets. Now no one is bringing "a date". But I guess that would probably ruin heterosexuality as we know it.

It seems the heterosexual identity is a delicate flower that can be corrupted by even the most casual contact with the gay.