You’ve no doubt heard by now about the teenage girl in Fulton, Mississippi who was banned from taking another girl to prom. When the school decided not to have a prom at all, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sought a court order to force the school to hold its senior prom. Constance McMilen was subsequently victimized in a cruel joke wherein she was sent to a fake prom site.

Now a group in San Francisco has offered to fly Constance McMillen to the anniversary party of the National Center for Lesbian Rights on May 1. NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell said the event is often referred to as the "lesbian prom." McMillen told CBS News:

"I just want to go to the prom and bring my date, just like everyone else gets to."

But the school board claimed McMillen’s request was against their policy against same-sex couples at the dance. They called it a distraction. Wait, back up — they wrote a policy? Wow, how forward thinking of them. They really thought of everything.

Oh, No, Not a Girl in a Tux — The Horror!

Apparently McMillen also wanted to wear a tux to her prom. This isn’t really an important detail except that it happened to remind me of girl in my high school who wore a tux to our prom. And took another girl as her date. [Insert gasp!] And here’s the kicker: it was 1987. Twenty-three years ago. Granted, this was the tree-hugging, homosexual producing, liberal infested West Coast, but still. Twenty-three years ago.

Seriously, they were opposed to a tuxedo? You’d think a school would welcome the full coverage offered by a three-piece suit when so many schools are fighting against plunging necklines and rear-revealing lengths. In fact, one school in Alabama actually resorted to paddling students who violated the prom attire policy.

Spank me, Mr. Principal. Yeah, that’s a whole other post.

The Distraction Factor

The school board in Mississippi got one thing right. Having two girls go to prom together was a bit of a distraction at my high school back in the day. Speculation about whether or not the couple would actually show up together swirled the hallways for DAYS before prom. I think it caused one of my friends to be late for calculus class. Gossip when they did show up and [gasp again] danced together delayed some of the opposite-sex after-prom sex by a good ten to fifteen minutes. So yes, there was some distraction. Surprisingly, no one got banned, and no one got sued.