Wow, Constance is everywhere!  Wanda had her on via satellite to discuss the situation in Mississippi, and also to share a few laughs.

(h/t Dan Savage)

ACTION ITEM, YOU GUYS:

Your task, if you choose to accept it (and you will if you know what’s good for you *hrmph*):

I wrote (and everybody else wrote too) about the school board in Itawamba County, Mississippi, which chose to punish an entire school by canceling the prom, rather than treating everyone equally and letting a lesbian student bring a girl as her date.  Everyone should be able to attend the prom with the person they want to go with, and if you happen to be in a high school romance, you definitely want to go with your significant other.  We all remember those times.

So here’s what you need to do:

1.  If you haven’t joined the Facebook group, do so.  That’s the easy part.

2.  Write a nice, heartfelt, firm e-mail (or make a phone call) to the members of that school board.  There’s no need to yell at them.  This is a time for them to hear our voices clearly, with a tough sort of love.  We’re defending this kid here. Let’s act like it.  (Righteous indignation is FINE.)

Here, via John Aravosis and Dan Savage, are the appropriate names and e-mail addresses:

Superintendent Teresa McNeece
tmcneece@itawamba.k12.ms.us
phone (662) 862-2159 Ext. 14

Principal Trae Wiygul
twiygul@itawamba.k12.ms.us
(662) 862-3104

School Board Member Eddie Hood
a082315@allstate.com

School Board Member Jackie Nichols
jnichols@itawamba.k12.ms.us

School Board Member Harold Martin
hmartin@itawamba.k12.ms.us

School Board Member Clara Brown
cbrown@network-one.com

School Board Member Tony Wallace
twallace@nexband.com

All right, you have your assignments. Get to it, my babies!

UPDATE:

Two things.  First, here’s a petition you can sign asking the school board to reverse their decision.  Second, I’ve decided to post the letter I sent here as well.  If you’re having trouble knowing where to start, feel free to use it as a guide:

Dear Sirs and Madams:

You’ve all received hundreds of e-mails at this point about your decision to cancel the Itawamba Agricultural High School prom. I’m glad. Those e-mails have been from straight, gay and lesbian people from all over the country (and possibly the world).  I’m also a writer and spokesperson for a national gay rights organization called Truth Wins Out, and we see firsthand the trauma that gay and lesbian kids deal with just trying to fit in in a world that often sees them as different. Look, we all have our beliefs. I respect that, and this is the United States, where we are given the freedom of those beliefs. But we are not given the freedom to impose our personal beliefs on others. I’d like you to consider something for me: Of all the “moral issues” facing this country, why does this one divide so many? And why is it that those most likely to be supportive are those who actually know gay people the best? There is a reason the younger generations are, in large majorities, supportive of LGBT people. They’ve grown up with gay and lesbian aunts, uncles, moms, dads, teachers, coaches, neighbors, friends, classmates, etc., and they know something many in the older generations do not. They know that we are no different, qualitatively, than they are. In fact, they know that we’re part of the exact same fabric they are. Because of their firsthand experience, they also know that much of what they may have been taught about who gay people are, what gay people are like, etc., simply isn’t true. All over the country, and yes, even in the South, gay kids are striving and thriving just like their straight peers. Just down the road from you in Memphis, gay kids have been taking their same gender dates to proms (in the suburbs!) for years now. And you know what? It’s turned out okay. Give your kids a chance to have the same opportunities to experience their prom in a way they’ll remember fondly.

Frankly, I expected better from the adults in the situation. Children rely on us to set a good example, and the example you’ve set says that it’s okay to punish a whole group for the (perceived) sins of one, and you’ve also shown them how to scapegoat an innocent person for the crimes of others. And let me let you in on a little secret, folks: Constance isn’t the only LGBT person at that school. You may not realize it, and the students may not realize it, but numbers don’t lie. There are gay boys and lesbian girls in that class, but they’re scared to come out. You’ve shown them this week that they have a reason to fear. You’ve shown them that the adults in their lives don’t have their backs, and for some, you’ve confirmed their fears that they’re alone in this world. You’ve now actively encouraged a climate of cruelty, of fear, of bullying, and of violence with your ill-conceived decision.

As I said before, we hear the stories on the other side. Some of them have happy endings. Others do not.

It’s in your hands. Be the adults.

Evan Hurst
Truth Wins Out
http://www.truthwinsout.org

I’m usually the snarky one who’s not fazed by wingnut nonsense, but this is disgusting:

If you’re a high school in Mississippi and you really don’t want your students bringing same-sex dates to the prom, what are you to do?

Well, you could try to ban them from coming to the prom, although that’s illegal. Or, if you’re the Itawamba Agricultural High School, you can cancel the prom altogether and punish everyone. That’s right. No gay couples. No straight couples. No prom.

Isn’t it amazing the depths folks will go in order to continue homophobic policies? That this school wanted to stop a lesbian student from bringing a same-sex date to the prom was outrageous enough. But to cancel the entire prom just to take aim at this student is punishing every single person in the school. So much for school’s acting in the best interests of their students.

The school is called Itawamba Agricultural High School.  So I have two questions for the Itawamba County School Board:

1.  Exactly how many self-loathing closet cases are on your board?  Because this is extreme, even for Mississippi.

2.  What’s wrong, Mississippi?  Were you worried that Virginia was out-wingnutting you this week, and you had to do something grotesque to prove that you’re the dumbest, most unreconstructed bigots in the Union?

Later in the above quoted piece, we hear from the lesbian student:

The student at the heart of this case is a senior named Constance McMillen. Reached by the Clarion Ledger, McMillen said she was absolutely disgusted that her school would try to punish her by canceling the prom for everyone.

“Oh, my God. That’s really messed up because the message they are sending is that if they have to let gay people go to prom that they are not going to have one,” she said. “A bunch of kids at school are really going to hate me for this, so in a way it’s really retaliation.”

Oh, but we’re supposed to believe that the Wingnut Right really cares about bullying of LGBT students? No, as Timothy Kincaid pointed out last year, some of their leading “pro-family” voices indeed view bullying LGBT students as a Christian duty.

They are the true sick people.  Not happy, healthy LGBT people.  We’re fine.

Focus on the Family, the self-styled “Christian” and “pro-family” organization, calls it “good news” that a West Virginia school board voted to exclude gay and straight students from the district’s anti-bullying policy.

The decision to vaguely oppose harassment without specifying specific types of harassment allows faculty to look the other way when disfavored categories of students are bullied.

According to Focus and the Charleston Daily Mail, the decision came after Focus’ truetolerance.org web site and the so-called Family Policy Council of West Virginia rallied parents and antigay pastors to smear the school district, accusing it of promoting homosexuality by opposing violence that is committed on the basis of the victim’s perceived homosexuality or heterosexuality. The FPC also falsely accused antiviolence advocates of seeking to promote affirmative action for bisexual teachers.

According to The Charleston Gazette, Jeremiah Dys of the FPC lied about professional mental-health organizations’ position on homosexuality. Dys falsely equated sexual orientation with gender identity disorder and, according to the Gazette,

noted that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [DSM] lists gender identity disorder [GID] as a medical condition. Teachers should help students with the disorder to get the medicine and treatment they need, he said.

Instead of educating West Virginia about the mental-health community’s knowledge of homosexuality versus transgender identity versus GID, it appears that the FPC and Focus have chosen to promote bullying and misrepresentation of the DSM in order to fool misinformed parents and faculty into sending gay youths into ex-gay indoctrination programs.

In a separate editorial, the Gazette condemned the board’s pointed exclusion of gay students from the district’s anti-bullying policies:

The board’s no-bullying policy protects blacks, Jews, the poor, Catholics, the disabled, Hispanics and other minorities. But the five members — Bill Raglin, Pete Thaw, Jim Crawford, Becky Jordon and Robin Rector — backed away from adding the words “sexual orientation” to the shield. Therefore, the policy says that blacks, Jews, the poor, Catholics, the disabled, Hispanics, etc., deserve respect and equality, but gays conspicuously are omitted.

Weaseling before a mob of fundamentalists, Raglin offered an amendment extending the safeguard to “any other status protected by federal, state or local law.” Presumably, he assumed that no such laws cover gays. Informed that Charleston’s human rights laws include homosexuals, Raglin quickly said he didn’t mean to apply the city rules.

The inclusion of sexual orientation in district policy had been sought amid reports of unpunished violence against gay students.

A Bridgeport, Conn., church called Manifested Glory Ministries posted a controversial video on YouTube that raises concern about the unregulated abuse of children by church-sponsored ex-gay programs.

The video features church elders performing an exorcism of so-called “homosexual demons.”

Fox Channel 61 in Hartford reports

The video shows leaders of the Manifested Glory Ministries in a frenetic scene, screaming, “Right now I command you to leave!”

At the same time a teen writhing on the ground as the adults around him implore so called “homosexual demons” to get out.

The leaders yell at the boy on the ground saying, “Right now in the name of Jesus, I call the homosexuality, right now in the name of Jesus.”

For 20 minutes it continues with the boy in a near seizure, even vomiting.

Robin McHaelen runs a mentoring program for gay teens, True Colors, and tells Fox 61 that she knows of five other teens in Connecticut who’ve been subjected to “demon casting”:

What really freaked me out is the people who did that to that child wasn’t because they were trying to hurt him. They thought they were trying to help him, but I think that they murdered his soul.

The church has since taken down its YouTube account, but not before its videos were replicated by other YouTube users.

Exodus International has one member church in Connecticut, New Life in Meriden. Truth Wins Out contacted the church for comment but has not received a response.

Hat tip: Steve Rothaus’s blog at The Miami Herald

In Omaha, Nebraska, a child’s parents and therapist have determined — after years of struggle, extensive counseling, and careful consideration of their unique circumstances — that it is best, at least for the time being, to allow their child to live as the opposite gender.

WJXT-TV in Jacksonville, Fla., has an in-depth story and video about the child’s background and struggle.

According to KTIV-TV,

[Therapist] Ellie Hites says the brain is sometimes wired differently than the body is.

She says many of her transgender clients have suffered from nervous breakdowns, suicide attempts and deep depression because they’ve been forced to hide their true identity.

Hites tells KETV-TV in Omaha, “I wish that society was open and loving enough to let that child be who that child perceives himself to be.”

But the activists of Focus on the Family and the Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha will hear nothing of it. It is still considered politically correct for members of conservative political institutions to ridicule sissies and tomboys and to dismiss any child development issue as something that can be cured with a good spanking and strict conformity. Focus’ Jeff Johnston — who has no professional mental-health credentials — ignorantly diagnoses that the child must have “gender identity disorder” and further declares, “Many boys who are troubled with gender-identity disorder grow out of it,” he said. “Good parental, pastoral and therapeutic support can help.”

In other words, Focus on the Family declares that its political activists — not a child’s parents or therapist — know what’s best for all children. And it deems itself qualified to blame parents and therapists for the failure of some children to conform to the dictates of Colorado Springs evangelicals. Meanwhile, the Catholic archdiocese in Omaha has been just as smug, ignorant, conformist, and superficial: It has thrown the child out of Catholic school.

According to WJXT,

The mother, a life-long Catholic, thought making the transition in their parish would be the best place for their child to continue friendships, with a support system that included other parents and children.

“The child is welcomed to come, but it would not be acceptable to change the child’s gender and present as a girl,” said Omaha Archdiocese’s Chancellor, the Rev. Joseph Taphorn.

Instead of utilizing this moment to teach its school children about gender, tolerance, and respect, the conservative archdiocese politely told the family to get out. This is the sort of sweetly worded ostracism that conservative Catholics and Focus on the Family try to market as “love” these days.

Focus on the Family and its religious-right therapeutic mentor, NARTH, have a long history of advocating ridicule and harassment of children as a means of imposing traditional gender roles and identities by force. This latest situation suggests that Focus has not yet learned how to approach issues of youth and gender with sensitivity, grace, patience, and respect for parents’ authority and first-hand knowledge.

It’s much easier for a conservative organization to humiliate a family and to dictate comforting, self-satisfied, and politically partisan stereotypes, than to support Christian families with intelligence and compassion in unique and difficult circumstances.

Evangelical antigay lawmakers in South Carolina have amended a bill originally intended to stop teen dating violence, so that the legislation excludes gay teens.

The bigots’ reasoning: Any effort to discourage domestic violence in gay teen relationships would implicitly acknowledge the existence and dignity of gay teens and would lessen the pressure upon teen-agers to pretend to be heterosexual or ex-gay.

Exodus International has two activist organizations and two member churches in the state — none of which have protested the exclusion of gay teens from antiviolence legislation, and none of which support antibullying programs in the state’s schools.

If you live in South Carolina, please let these activists know, politely, that those who tolerate or affirm violence against gay youth in your state betray fairness, justice, morality, and Christian values.

Contact New Song, the so-called Truth Ministry, Christian Assembly of God, and Westminister Presbyterian Church.

Why, exactly, does Exodus International — the world’s largest ex-gay organization — allow scientifically inept writers to make the organization’s outreach to youth appear ignorant and irrational?

And why does Exodus commit research fraud just a few months after the reparative-therapy lobbying group NARTH was publicly exposed and criticized for committing fraud with the same research?

I wondered this, again, after reading Emproph’s latest dissection of a new Exodus Youth article that claims to educate readers about the science of sexual orientation.

Exodus cites 16-year-old research as if it were current; ignores research that has occurred since 1993; mischaracterizes studies regarding the biology of sexual orientation; and overlooks the antigay politics and discredited claims of its main source, reparative therapist Jeffrey Satinover.

Exodus also mischaracterizes the research of Dr. Lisa Diamond, who publicly discredited NARTH last year for mischaracterizing her research regarding sexual fluidity and bisexuality in the same manner.

Exodus concludes by misrepresenting the research of Dr. Robert Spitzer, who in a 2001 study found that few people appear capable of changing their sexual orientation — and that of those who claim to be successful, many remain mostly or fully same-sex-attracted despite their claim to be heterosexual.

“True Tolerance,” a campaign of Focus on the Family that enjoys promotional support from Exodus International, may be having an impact upon public schools:

As many as 107 Tennessee public school districts recently began blocking student access to gay health, science, family, and education resources. Instead, students who seek accurate information are being confined to ex-gay resources that have been rejected as inaccurate and harmful by professional medical and mental-health organizations.

Banned resources include:

• Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)
• The Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN)
• Human Rights Campaign (HRC)
• Marriage Equality USA
• Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry
• The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)
• Dignity USA (an organization for LGBT Catholics)

“True Tolerance” is an antigay response to the Day of Silence, GLSEN’s national campaign to discourage violence in public schools. The antigay project espouses tolerance of outspoken on-campus activism by antigay Christians — and intolerance of those who oppose antigay violence or who disagree with discredited ex-gay propaganda. Without offering evidence, “True Tolerance” accuses antiviolence advocates of waging a “monopoly” and a “pro-gay agenda.”

The campaign does not claim responsibility for Internet restrictions in Tennessee specifically, but the web site encourages antigay activists to pressure schools to silence the allegedly “unbalanced” messages of the antiviolence crowd and to silence “vulnerable children” (teen-agers) who seek to be honest about their sexuality.

If pressure tactics don’t work, then True Tolerance lobs legal threats against antiviolence efforts. First, the campaign warns against schools’ fears of “legal liability for not making their school ’safe.’” True Tolerance dismisses the simple fact that antigay violence is making schools unsafe, and that parents of bullied youths are suing. Instead, True Tolerance offers to arm antigay activists with unspecified “legally accurate facts” in opposition to mandatory “diversity” policies. It would seem that, in the view of Exodus and Focus, “true tolerance” in schools cannot and should not be diverse enough to include bullied youths, their friends, or their parents.

Official efforts to “protect” mature students from the facts about gay health, science, family issues, and education are having a negative impact on Tennessee schools.

Karyn Storts-Brinks, a librarian at Fulton High School in Knoxville, points out:

Students who need to do research for assignments on current events can only get one viewpoint, keeping them from being able to cover both sides of the issue. That’s not fair and can hinder their schoolwork.

Box Turtle Bulletin reports:

The ACLU is giving the districts until April 29 to come up with a plan to provide access to LGBT sites or any other category that blocks non-sexual websites advocating the fair treatment of LGBT people by the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year.

Eight religious-right organizations — three of them, identified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center — are escalating a war of words against antibullying programs in U.S. schools.

Exodus International, Focus on the Family, Americans for Truth, Liberty Counsel, Mission: America, MassResistance, Illinois Family Institute, and Abiding Truth Ministries are leading three campaigns to smear the Day of Silence, which is an April 17 event planned at 8,000 U.S. schools to “just say no” to verbal, sexual, and physical assault.

All eight organizations oppose antibullying programs unless they exclude gay youths. Instead, these organizations want same-sex-attracted youths to be compelled by abusive peers and school faculty to be admitted — or worse, involuntarily detained — in amateur-operated and unsuccessful ex-gay boot camps.

Because of these organizations’ callous indifference to violence, youths are dying and parents are suing school districts for negligence, reckless endangerment, and complicity in violence committed by the children of antigay parents.

Exodus this year has assumed responsibility for a Day of (Un)Truth which encourages antigay students to ignorantly and mistakenly assert that anyone can change their sexual orientation and therefore — Exodus reasons — no antiviolence programs are necessary in schools. Exodus defines organized opposition to antigay violence as a sinister promotion of the “homosexual agenda.” Exodus claims that its event, scheduled for April 20, aims to promote conversation in schools. But in fact Exodus refuses to engage in discussion of antigay violence either in North America or in Uganda, where Exodus continues to be complicit in a campaign to promote vigilantism, involuntary ex-gay detention, and imprisonment against gay Ugandans.

Focus on the Family, meanwhile, is collaborating with Exodus to espouse one-way tolerance of antigay students in a “True Tolerance” campaign which redefines tolerance to permit 1) privileges for antigay evangelical bullies to relentlessly insult and threaten classmates during school hours on school property, combined with 2) character assassination and official efforts to silence those who oppose antigay violence and who, therefore, are accused of promoting a supposed “homosexual agenda.”

Six other far-right organizations are, if nothing else, honest about opposing conversation in schools: They support a “walkout” — a pseudo-Christian excuse for antigay students and misinformed or negligent parents to play hooky on the day when their peers are taking positive steps to stop on-campus violence. Scott Lively’s “Abiding Truth Ministries” headlines the recent Uganda ex-gay conference which launched a campaign of antigay vigilantism in that nation. Americans for Truth is a nameplate for antigay activist Peter LaBarbera, whose sexually graphic website produces offensive homoerotic pornography for consumption by antigay donors and antigay private-school assemblies.

Box Turtle Bulletin offers a detailed analysis of each campaign by self-styled Christians to defend antigay violence and oppose positive steps to restore safe learning in schools.