Black Tie Event

At Itawamba County Agricultural High School in Fulton, Mississippi, you wouldn't expect to have same-sex couples attending the high school prom. It just reads a little too "Footloose" to me, I guess. But senior Constance McMillen wants to change that impression. She had hoped to bring her date, her girlfriend to the dance on April 2. She had also planned on wearing a tuxedo. School policy requires that senior prom dates be of the opposite sex. Thems the rules. Constance doesn't agree with those rules. Rather than create any larger stir, the school board decided not to host the event "due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events." It should be noted that this decision came about after the Mississippi branch of the American Civil Liberties Union got involved.
And so, there will be no prom in Fulton this year. "I am a little bummed out about it. I guess it's a decision that had to be made. Either way someone was going to get disappointed — either Constance was or we were," seventeen-year-old junior Anna Watson said. "I don't agree with homosexuality, but I can't change what another person thinks or does." Not all the students felt that way. McKenzie Chaney, who said she wasn't planning to attend the prom anyway, "it's kind of ridiculous that they can't let her wear the tuxedo and it all be over with."
That's the interesting thing about high school. Everything seems to be monumentally important at the time, as long as it is happening to you. Constance might have chosen to flaunt convention and simply show up at the dance with her date, dressed as she chose, and waited for the reaction. She might have asked for an "alternative prom" to be held, organizing friends and family in attempts to bypass the staid powers that be. That might have proved more dramatic. Cinematic.
In the long and impressive tradition of "Carrie" and "Twilight," or even "Pretty In Pink," there could be a screenplay here. When the movie does get made, I wonder if it will play at the Fulton multiplex. If they had one.