Lissen up ya motorcycle ridin' stereotype, this ain't no New York City, this is Mississipuh! We'uns jus' stopped lynchin' last week! Ya'll can't go all paradin' around like ya'll'er from Kally-fornya, y'hear?"

You think she might have been better off not telling the school ahead of time?

Is an offensive stereotype really the best response to this?

Between 1) pointing out their horribleness verbally, 2) violence, and 3) silent approval, I would say, emphatically, "yes."

Right. Your "friend".

First off, I'd just like to say that I'm very proud of Louisiana for not being in this headline.

Second, it still confuses me, a pure innocent confusion, the amount of effort people will put into being bothered by the decisions of others. Honestly, I think of myself as a generous, but pretty self absorbed guy. As I also think of most people as self absorbed, which does not have to be a bad thing. Unless someone is threatening, blocking, annoying, or just disrupting my way of life, then I really could care less. I am much to busy taking care of me. So, you know what wouldn't bother me? Someone going to prom dressed like however, or bring whoever, they damn well please, because it has nothing to do with me. You know what would bother me? Something I was going to attend being canceled on someone else's say so.

It just seems to be how the majority works, and I will never understand it.

The fastest way for someone to stop a big stink about violating someone's rights is to not give a crap about what they do in the first place. It's also the easiest. How does apathy and laziness not fix these situations before they get out of hand?

That was my first thought. Since when do kids have to "request" the school to bring a specific date to a dance?

What does that even mean? Was the teacher referring to her rural town, as in "remember backwater villages don't like the gays"? Or was the teacher referring to high school, in that "it's not okay to be out in high school?" Both viewpoints are odious, but I think it's important to distinguish which was really at play here.

I see where you're all coming from and I agree that this is not the appropriate way to deal with a same-sex couple.

That said, this is Mississippi we're talking about. Highschoolers in Mississippi. Not the best place to go for progressive and enlightened outlooks. I admire the couple's openness and loyalty to each other and support their right to be a couple, but I somehow doubt that all the other students at this event would be quite so open-minded.

If the school board genuinely thought that a lesbian couple would cause some serious problems, up to and including violence against those students, yet didn't wish to specifically ban them from attendance for being gay, they didn't really have a whole lot of options. It sounds like a lame excuse but I can see how it would be a valid concern. You can't expect a school full of teenagers to be respectful of alternative lifestyles and you can't fault the people in charge for understanding that.

That doesn't make it right. It just makes it a thing.

In my high school, you had to do something special if you were bringing someone who didn't go to the school. Mostly a way of knowing who was going to be there. It certainly didn't stop a girl in my class from bringing a 30 year old butch lesbian as her date (now that was creepy... though it has less to do with the lesbian part and more to do with the 30 year old at prom part).

Yeah because canceling the prom for everyone certainly will protect her from violence. If that was their goal and if they understood that "You can't expect a school full of teenagers to be respectful of alternative lifestyles" then they would have known better than to punish everyone at the school and tie that to her!

Actually, they're in a separate related headline, but in a good way. A New Orleans hotel owner is offering to host the prom for the kids if the school doesn't overturn their decision.

Rereading the BBC story, I start to wonder if the prom-cancelling wasn't a retaliation for the girl calling in the ACLU. I can't tell from the story when she got ACLU support, but it seems as if she asked, was told no, she got legal help, then the school cancelled prom.

Kudos to her for refusing to be bullied.

Not to pile on Mississippi (but to TOTALLY pile on Mississippi), a list of their accomplishments:

http://www.statemaster.com/state/MS/Bottom-Rankings

A few highlights. Last in median family income, high school graduates, visits to dentist, and quality of life. Second to last in best educated index, above 8th grade writing ability, and healthy index. Third to last in number of roller coasters.

Wait, what?