This is not okay: lesbian teens and special education students were sent to a fake prom in Fulton, Mississippi.

From The Advocate:

To avoid Constance McMillen bringing a female date to her prom, the teen was sent to a “fake prom” while the rest of her class partied at a secret location at an event organized by parents.

McMillen tells The Advocate that a parent-organized prom happened behind her back — she and her date were sent to a Friday night event at a country club in Fulton, Miss., that attracted only five other students. Her school principal and teachers served as chaperones, but clearly there wasn’t much to keep an eye on.

“They had two proms and I was only invited to one of them,” McMillen says. “The one that I went to had seven people there, and everyone went to the other one I wasn’t invited to.”

I was so hoping that the students would step up and organize their own prom to include Constance and her date. What can we do to help this not to happen again?

A national day of brain-storming is in order.   I’ll offer the following ideas to kick things off: Encourage all of our nation’s school districts to do what it takes to become “safe zones” for LGBTQ persons.  The University of Colorado, which my campus ministry is associated with, has numerous posters in offices and dorms across their campus which indicate that those are places where people have committed to respect and tolerance.

• > Encourage our nation’s churches and religious communities to shift toward a more tolerant and accepting understanding of homosexuality.
• > Encourage our nation’s churches and religious communities to shift toward a more tolerant and accepting understanding of special education and special needs.
• > Encourage our nation’s junior and senior high schools (and/or religious groups that work with those age groups) to show the movie Angus and facilitate discussions about the insights in it.

Gentle (but understandably outraged) Elephant readers, what are some other ideas that we can try?  We really need to do something. As they say, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”