Thursday, March 11, 2010

Femonomics reads the internet so you don't have to: anti-gay high school policies and jail time for your miscarriage

How do you remember your high school prom? Was it the most magical night of your teen years or was it a night full of drama? A school in Mississippi has decided that Constance McMillen (and consequently her entire class) isn’t going to get to have one. When she found out that she was not allowed to bring her girlfriend to prom, the ACLU got involved and reminded the school that it was a violation of her rights. So in response the school outright canceled the evening.

As Coca Colo reported late February, Utah legislators passed a bill to charge women who engage in ‘reckless’ acts to terminate a pregnancy with criminal homicide. I can’t even begin to imagine what a 17 year-old girl would have to be going through to pay a stranger to beat her in an attempt to miscarry. The bill has now been signed by the governor, but with slightly revised language. They dropped the word ‘reckless.’ A major concern is the potential to make every miscarriage fair game for investigation.

3 comments:

  1. whats sad is that comments on other websites blame the girls for the canceled prom. i'm confused as to why you need permission to bring a date or wear a tux? couldn't they just have shown up together?

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  2. I'm confused as well.. I really don't know why there was a preexisting rule, but apparently the school thought it was necessary to have a memo explicitly saying the date had to be of the opposite sex. I don't remember such a rule at my prom, granted that was about 10 years ago now! Another thing I was thinking about was what if a woman wanted to bring someone who was just a friend?

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  3. Just to follow up on the Mississippi prom cancellation story: I read on Perez Hilton that after filing a suit with a district court a judge ruled in favor of the school system's right to cancel the prom because Constance McMillen wanted to bring her girlfriend. Sad and makes me angry.
    http://perezhilton.com/2010-03-23-so-sad-judge-denies-constance-her-prom

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