By the rules

I guess it's getting to be that time of year when people are running around looking for prom dates. It's a big deal, held every year, the junior prom, the senior prom, sometimes the junior-senior prom. There's always a theme, such as "Fantasy," "Evening in Paris, " or, down in a little town in Mississippi, "Ill Will Toward Persons of a Differing Sexual Orientation" might do the trick, although you wonder how to festoon the balloons in the gymnasium for that one.

You see, for a lot of the same reasons that people used to keep people of different races out of public events, we now see people of different sexual paths being shunned and shunted off, and I, for the life of me, cannot understand it. Down in Itawamba County, Mississippi, birthplace of Country Music legend Virginia Wynette Pugh, better known as Tammy Wynette, the chicken-fried locals who run the county school board have decided to cancel the spring prom at Itawamba Agricultural High School, rather than allow a lesbian senior to a) wear a tuxedo to the dance and b) bring a female date. You can see the entire lawsuit here, if you wish. Notice that the teachers who wrote the memo delineating the rules for the prom (it was meant to be fun, therefore, there MUST be rules and they WILL be followed) come sooooo very close to spelling hors d' oeuvres right. I mean, just one 's' away! And also I liked how the memo came out on February 5 and said that the tickets must be all paid for by February 5! Talk about pressure. So these teachers don't believe in a) spell check b) proofreading or c) letting other people live their lives as they see fit.

Listen, I can see all sorts of sides to most debates...health care reform, gun control, abortion, foreign military intervention. I will usually come down on the liberal side of these debates but I can see, at least, the reasoning and logical structure of the conservative arguments on the other sides. Agree, no, never, but appreciate the logic, yes. But after all these years, I am still waiting for someone to hip me on how it affects the spinning of the earth on its axis if a couple of guys are in love, or a couple of women. To put it more bluntly, how is it any of my consarned business what the gender makeup is of the people down the street or around the corner or 2,000 miles away? Are they not every bit as entitled to their lives together as are Peggy and I?




That's the young woman involved in this brouhaha. Her name is Constance McMillen. I don't see any horns on her, no evil eye or anything, so what's it to any other Itawamban if she brings a female or a male to the prom?

When we were kids, we had several codes of conduct which governed our lives:

I. finders keepers, losers weepers
II. what's it to you?
III. tough beans
IV. mind your own beeswax

I hereby rule that sections II and IV are applicable here. If it was good enough for the tough, rag-tag crowd at the Hampton Elementary School, where we were so tough, we wore tweed pants without underwear, the certain precedents contained herein are deemed to be in force and legally binding, it is ordered.

And another thing.

Kids say the darndest things. I'd say we should listen to them more and listen less to the Itawamba County Adult He-Men School Board Club and Hunting Society. Kids accept each other for what they are. Fools except each other for what they are.