Prom
Dearest Readers,
I come to you again with a burdened heart. Friday April 2nd 2010 was Dress You Up In My Love Day or some may have called it National Prom Equality Day. This day, for me, was in Honor of Constance the young woman from Mississippi that was denied prom because of her simple request to attend prom with her partner. In reprimand the school canceled the prom. The MS courts ruled it in violation of her constitutional rights yet not requiring the school to reinstate the prom. Later to find out that there was a fake prom that fellow students used to divert Constance, her partner and a few of her friends to a different location than the make shift prom the rest of the students were having.
April 2nd was a day to honor equality in proms. I and a few others dressed in our prom outfits and went about daily lives such as classes, work, grocery shopping etc. Yes I got weird looks, I got questions but it was mere few hours of being in a dress ( which was the first time I publicly wore a dress in nearly three years) for the awareness that this country needs to open its mind to more than one way of loving. Values are important but take note of history our values have changed because society has changed. Our needs have changed. Take note of the construction of family today. half of all marriages end in divorce and half of the half that end in divorce get remarried. IF those marriages have children and the divorced parents remarry then that family becomes a blended family. 50 years ago that was almost unheard of. So if we can change our views on what is a family in the heterosexual world why cant we open our minds to the idea of GLBT Youth going to prom. Honestly people do we want our GLBT youth to have more and more cases of Bobby Griffith? By denying them prom, and all rights that are granted their heterosexual counter parts, this forcing them into a unwanted corner. A corner that I often deal with not just in academia but in my career. Its a place that I get antsy thinking about let alone live in during the already troubling part of my life called adolescence. Imagine having your high school years now, add being stripped of all your rights to freedom simply because your gay, and add the heterosexual religious rhetoric bombed on you repeatedly day after day.
This disheartens me greatly because these teens are people, people with hearts and minds just as great as those who are heterosexual, yet we are squashing them simply because they love freely. They are precious and beyond any measure of value because they are more valuable than anything any person can measure. These are the young version of me. Simply wishing to be part of the greater society but because there are people who wish to be superior to them act much like the school officials in MS. It starts young folks... if they learn that society hates them, they have no value to the world simply because they are gay, if they learn that they must conform to a standard that no one can fit into then it ultimately affects the next generation of adults. It permits a vicious cycle of hate. If we allow this hate to be taught then we are only condemning ourselves and the generations to come. If we want change we our selves must change. That means open our minds to all kinds of love, all kinds of families, all kinds of couples and relationships. we must teach acceptance true acceptance. It starts with you and it starts with me. I point the finger at myself as well because I need to change my views as well. Then teach with kindness the ways of change and acceptance.
Change starts small and snowballs to others but it must be done with kindness and love for people will not see it if you hit them over the head with iron skillet with it. Although granted there are people you might have to be a bit more forcefull with but none the less meet them where they are, understand them accept them for when you do they too will change.
So with that being said, I encourage you to speak up for all the Constances you know or all the Bobby Griffiths you know ither in word or in dead. I bid you accept the invetation to start change in ways that you can.
untill next time -- tune in for more riviting adventures in ...
Diaries of a Mad Fat Woman.
I come to you again with a burdened heart. Friday April 2nd 2010 was Dress You Up In My Love Day or some may have called it National Prom Equality Day. This day, for me, was in Honor of Constance the young woman from Mississippi that was denied prom because of her simple request to attend prom with her partner. In reprimand the school canceled the prom. The MS courts ruled it in violation of her constitutional rights yet not requiring the school to reinstate the prom. Later to find out that there was a fake prom that fellow students used to divert Constance, her partner and a few of her friends to a different location than the make shift prom the rest of the students were having.
April 2nd was a day to honor equality in proms. I and a few others dressed in our prom outfits and went about daily lives such as classes, work, grocery shopping etc. Yes I got weird looks, I got questions but it was mere few hours of being in a dress ( which was the first time I publicly wore a dress in nearly three years) for the awareness that this country needs to open its mind to more than one way of loving. Values are important but take note of history our values have changed because society has changed. Our needs have changed. Take note of the construction of family today. half of all marriages end in divorce and half of the half that end in divorce get remarried. IF those marriages have children and the divorced parents remarry then that family becomes a blended family. 50 years ago that was almost unheard of. So if we can change our views on what is a family in the heterosexual world why cant we open our minds to the idea of GLBT Youth going to prom. Honestly people do we want our GLBT youth to have more and more cases of Bobby Griffith? By denying them prom, and all rights that are granted their heterosexual counter parts, this forcing them into a unwanted corner. A corner that I often deal with not just in academia but in my career. Its a place that I get antsy thinking about let alone live in during the already troubling part of my life called adolescence. Imagine having your high school years now, add being stripped of all your rights to freedom simply because your gay, and add the heterosexual religious rhetoric bombed on you repeatedly day after day.
This disheartens me greatly because these teens are people, people with hearts and minds just as great as those who are heterosexual, yet we are squashing them simply because they love freely. They are precious and beyond any measure of value because they are more valuable than anything any person can measure. These are the young version of me. Simply wishing to be part of the greater society but because there are people who wish to be superior to them act much like the school officials in MS. It starts young folks... if they learn that society hates them, they have no value to the world simply because they are gay, if they learn that they must conform to a standard that no one can fit into then it ultimately affects the next generation of adults. It permits a vicious cycle of hate. If we allow this hate to be taught then we are only condemning ourselves and the generations to come. If we want change we our selves must change. That means open our minds to all kinds of love, all kinds of families, all kinds of couples and relationships. we must teach acceptance true acceptance. It starts with you and it starts with me. I point the finger at myself as well because I need to change my views as well. Then teach with kindness the ways of change and acceptance.
Change starts small and snowballs to others but it must be done with kindness and love for people will not see it if you hit them over the head with iron skillet with it. Although granted there are people you might have to be a bit more forcefull with but none the less meet them where they are, understand them accept them for when you do they too will change.
So with that being said, I encourage you to speak up for all the Constances you know or all the Bobby Griffiths you know ither in word or in dead. I bid you accept the invetation to start change in ways that you can.
untill next time -- tune in for more riviting adventures in ...
Diaries of a Mad Fat Woman.