Prom Queen and Letters

[Cole Parker]

Here's an article from the LA Times and today's follow up letters. The letters are pretty good.

Cole

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pr...2C6519181.story

He's gay, not a girl

Re ?An unusual prom queen,? May 28

Equality for all and T-shirts for those who support same-sex marriage

www.Lgbtshirts.com

The fact that an openly gay student is one of the most popular kids at Fairfax High is yet another welcome sign that our sons and daughters will make this world a better place. But I wish the young man had run for prom king.

He's not a woman -- he's gay -- and there's nothing about being gay that makes you less of a man.

Tommy Moran

Encino

The paramount truth of the politically correct dogma is that "how you feel " is all that matters.

If the boy at Fairfax High School feels like one of the girls, then of course he should be allowed to run for prom queen.

I await the mass hemorrhaging that will result when this same "open-minded" crowd is forced to stifle its hypocrisy on the day he demands to use the girls' locker room because that's where he "feels" he should be.

Count the seconds until a gender discrimination lawsuit is filed on his behalf.

Randy Peterson

Laguna Hills

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I do not regard it as sad that a male has been chosen to represent Fairfax High as its prom representative.

What is sad is that our adult educators and the supposedly educated students are so willing to abandon centuries of our English language. The term "queen" in the English language refers to a female. Although the student is a homosexual, he is nonetheless a male.

Jeremiah Flanigan

Long Beach

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Once upon a time, the last names of students interviewed in reference to the election of a young man as Fairfax High's prom queen would have read like a membership list at Temple Sinai: Levine, Cohen, Goldstein. Today, the names have changed: Mendoza, Washington, Parsons, Brown.

But only the names are different. The courageous spirit at the school remains as undaunted as it was when our generation protested the treatment of blacklisted Hollywood writers and directors, or begged our parents to vote for the progressive candidate, Henry Wallace.

I remember the kids at Fairfax as idealistic and avant garde. The class of 2009 has demonstrated that while the demographics have changed, the Fairfax Lion is as feisty as he or she was 60 years ago.

Carol Nahan

Palm Desert

As a gay supporter, including of same-sex marriage, I believe we have finally pushed the envelope too far.

What did Sergio Garcia accomplish by winning a female competition? Was it to embarrass females, who lost to a male in a female competition? Did he win because of sympathy votes, or did he win because individuals thought it would be funny to have a male win a female contest?

For years, Garcia has been accepted in the community as openly gay, for which I applaud him. But Garcia is a male, not a female. He should have run for prom king and, if he had won, would be a gay prom king. I am upset with the Los Angeles Unified School District and, in particular, very upset with Fairfax High School for letting his name be added to the ballot.

All of us, gay or straight, are entitled to live a healthy and happy life and do what we want with our lives, as long as we do not hurt any others, physically or emotionally.

I assume the females who lost to Garcia may be distraught over losing a female contest to a male participant. A prom queen contest is for female participation only -- not for males who want to be females.

Daniel Marinoff

Studio City

[Drewbie]

He Clearly said he doesn't want to be a girl he went in it for fun, a prom queen title isn't the most important in the world.

[The Pecman]

Wow, my partner and I lived about 100 yards away from Fairfax High for almost seven years. Glad to see they're embracing equality -- especially in that neighborhood, which is predominantly gay these days. (It's also home to many Orthodox Jews, so it's an interesting combination.)

[DesDownunder]

I am reminded of the case where a director of a play was taken to court on discrimination charges because he chose a male to play the Prince of Denmark in Hamlet, over a more experienced female who also auditioned for the role.

The court found in favour of the female and told the director he had to cast her in the role. The director refused and abandoned the production altogether.

In the case of the Prom Queen, if the boy had wanted to be a part of the Prom Monarchy, (a peculiar thing in itself, given that America is a Democratic Republic) then the female winner would be the Queen and the male would be the King. What is at stake here, (given that it is merely a popularity contest) is that the gender preference of the participants should be irrelevant, not their biological gender.

I don't think this is equality at all. To me it is politically correct madness in that it ignores the formal definitions of the English language.

However there is an alternative solution.

Queen and King are terms used in English to distinguish the members of a monarchy on the basis of their reproductive roles, not their preferences.

The British monarchy has had more than its fair share of gay monarchs, but I cannot remember one gay king who wanted to be called the queen, even though he was one, but that is another use of the word, and not one that applied to the Prom court contest.

The arguments that can be raised for gender bending in this case, ignore the formal English language to the detriment of definitions.

The contest should have been for Prom Heads of State. Upon being crowned, the winners should then have been asked,

"and how would you like to be known?"

The crowned winners could then declare they would like to be called, King, Queen or President or whatever.

This would allow persons who have adopted a gender for various reasons (medical, religious, orientation, political madness (sorry, I mean, 'correctness')) to participate on their own terms, which is surely more equitable in a world seeking to accommodate and promote nature's diversity.

And no, this choice of name, does not affront the English definition, because it is a personal choice (of the winner), and that as we know, is what recognising equality is really all about.

Feel free to disagree, I am going to have a nap.

[Malexous]

World is a simple place... It's all depend on the people whether they accept it or not. If they do then it's right if not then it's wrong. Of course following the nature of humanity, human like to over complicate stuff lol. In the end it's useless to argue about it... Everyone have their guidelines.

[JamesSavik]

I'm not sure that this is a good thing.

It seems to me that it makes a joke out of gay people and what we're really fighting for.

We've got serious issues like human rights to think of. Prom queen? Try handing a tiara to a poor kid in Iran that's being strung up.

This might fly in California but let's consider how it plays in rural Tennessee when voting the school queer "prom queen" becomes just another torment.

If it had happened to me I'm not sure whether I would have gone psychotic or suicidal. I am sure that I would have been so pissed that I would taken somebody out and it wouldn't have been to dinner and a movie.

[colinian]

Kids in high school are kids. They like to do silly and crazy things and want to have fun. They don't worry about what adults might think. They don't care what adults might think. Cut them some slack. In five or ten or twenty years they'll be terribly embarrassed about what they did. They'll see social implications about what they did. They'll wish they never did what they did. For now, let's leave them alone and let them do what they want to do without trying to load them down with a lot of adult baggage.

Colin

[Tanuki Racoon]

Kids in high school are kids. They like to do silly and crazy things and want to have fun. They don't worry about what adults might think. They don't care what adults might think. Cut them some slack. In five or ten or twenty years they'll be terribly embarrassed about what they did. They'll see social implications about what they did. They'll wish they never did what they did. For now, let's leave them alone and let them do what they want to do without trying to load them down with a lot of adult baggage.

OMG! You sound like an adult. Perish the thought.

[Cole Parker]

[quote name='writebymyself' date='Jun 14 2009, 01:40 PM' post='26700']

OMG! You sound like an adult. Perish the thought.

Colin's right though, and there's something to think about in what he said.

We adults, sober and mature and sometimes overzealous, can over-think a lot of things, a lot of the time. We find ourselves ignoring the humor in things, the capriciousness of them.

We can think of what it might be like for a boy to be voted Prom Queen when he himself didn't put his name on the ballot, and isn't out.

We can think of the unhappy girls who have made being voted Prom Queen a goal all their lives, perhaps encouraged by their moms, perhaps made a huge issue of by their moms, who have now lost the chance of attaining their dreams because of a foolish lark by a boy.

We can imagine a boy who's to be Prom King wanting his girlfriend to be Queen and to so warp up a high school dream.

Or any of a number of other permutations.

What we tend not to do is imagine this is fun thing, that the kids don't take it that seriously, that perhaps the kids want to promote sexual orientation insignificance and tolerance, and that this is a fun thing the entire school is behind.

We might also be slighting the school administrators when we grind our teeth over several imagined injustices. They might be right on the ball, measuring the mood of their student body, and keeping things on an even keel.

I think Colin is right. This probably isn't the big deal that's being made of it, and the kids are taking it in stride much more than the kibitzers.

C

[JamesSavik]

What we tend not to do is imagine this is fun thing...

Because it's an IDIOT thing.

Whenever I see something like this, I shudder. Much like I do when I see some idiocy like this:

How are we supposed to be taken seriously when THIS IS OUR FACE IN THE MEDIA?

People look at this shit and they do NOT see reasonable people.

Whenever there is a Pride parade in a big city, it's hardly noticed because they are used to the freak show.

Those of us in the sticks pay for it when the hicks see it on the 700 Club and retaliate.