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The New Normal

Perceptions, they shift slowly. Recently, when Constance McMillen, an 18-year-old senior at Itawamba Agricultural High School in Jackson,...


Perceptions, they shift slowly.

Recently, when Constance McMillen, an 18-year-old senior at Itawamba Agricultural High School in Jackson, Mississippi, challenged a long-standing school policy that barred her from bringing along her girlfriend as her prom date (not to mention wearing a tuxedo), the school responded by canceling prom altogether.

McMillen's response: "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. A bunch of kids at school are really going to hate me for this."

Mississippi's American Civil Liberties Union agreed and last week filed a suit against the school district, asking that its decision be reversed.

To fight back, Autostraddle is compiling a community-generated gallery of same-sex prom photos.

And while on the topic of perception-shifting, despite having lost her bid for the White House The New York Times' Gail Collins is fond of describing Hillary Clinton's loss as having achieved something equally important: "She got the country used to the idea. It seems normal to us now."

Maybe McMillen's fight to take her girlfriend to prom is but the latest hurdle.

[Via Matt Yglesias.]

Prom photos via Autostraddle.


















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