Lesbian, the ACLU Ruin Prom for Mississippi Town...

I'm not, but whatever.

Update:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7073442.ece

No forced school-sponsored prom, and no invite to the private prom. No surprise there. The federal court is sympathetic to her cause, and she may get some money, but no prom.

What exists are the words of a man who finds sexuality abhorrent. There's no reason to think he was singing a different tune in those missing letters. Christianity would be a very different animal if he'd just gone off into the desert and gone extinct along with the Essenes and not tried to twist the teachings of a Teacher he never met.

I wonder what she expected.

She didn't ask the school to cancel the prom, and there is no indication that the school warned her beforehand that if she pushed the matter they would do so.

Well, this lady had better get used to the consequences that happen when you do wrong.

Standing up for your rights is doing wrong.

Do you cry yourself to sleep at night that you don't live in the religious theocracy you clearly desire?

There's that ol' Law of Unintended Consequences, popping up again.

Maybe the silver lining will be that she learns a valuable lesson.

Well since the incident she has received public support, had the courts back her up, received offers from multiple groups willing to host a really awesome prom (which the people of her town turned down in favor of holding their straights only prom in a furniture mart) and a scholarship to a college out of town.

If a lesson has been learned it is that standing up for your rights is the correct thing to do, and the bigots will end up the worse off for it.

Well there you go. Win-win for everyone.

Indeed.

If we do the cold calculations we have:

Minuses - Lost a school sponsored prom

Pluses - Ellen Degeneres paying the freight on your college degree.

Kinda adds up to "win" IMO

If the wording of the article is indeed what was ruled, then it is, overall, a very good ruling. Her rights were indeed violated by not being allowed to escort her girlfriend to the prom.

I do note that the wording of the ruling is different near the beginning of the article and near the end. Near the beginning, it says that her rights were violated also by her not being allowed to dress in a tuxedo, a point with which I do not agree. I don't think there was any need to mix the issue of wanting them to change the dress code in with the issue of allowing homosexuals the same rights as others. But that appears to be a journalist's interpretation of the ruling. When the ruling is actually quoted, at the end, the wording is very specific, and right on the button IMO: “Defendants have violated her First Amendment rights by denying Constance’s request to bring her girlfriend as her date to the prom.”

I note also that the ruling does not say that her rights were violated by the prom being cancelled. Having a prom is not a "right," so no one's rights were violated by cancelling it. The initial decision barring her from enjoying the same privileges as others (taking her date to the prom) did violate her rights, however. If this is indeed how the ruling was made, then the judge understood something that a lot of people in this thread apparently did not.

Can you prove that?

^ A couple of years ago I did a thread on the subject of Jesus and Paul. You can consult it if you want to see various people's opinions on the matter. In general, as could be expected, those who are opposed to Paul affirmed, without being able to demonstrate, a difference between Paul's teaching and the teaching of Jesus, while those who believe the New Testament defended the essential similarity of their teachings without being able to convince the skeptics. IOW, status quo, but some interesting posts nevertheless.

The article in the local paper includes a quote which clears up that bit about what is a "right" (in the judges opinion)-

Well this is an updated story that dropped the quote I had in mind.

Basically, the Judge said that because the girl was trying to make a statement and communicate a message by her clothes and her date that it was a First Amendment issue and they stiffed her free expression by taking away the venue.

Now, in a world where courts have upheld stripping as a free speech issue, that's not that crazy.

One might argue, I suppose, that the school is not oblidged to provide a forum for controversial "speech" but it appears the reasoning is that closing a pre-existing forum because of the potential for controversial "speech" is a different kettle of fish.

Whereas my position is that the school administrators are not obligated to provide something that is not part of their government-mandated function (education) in a way they don't like, even if I disagree with what they like (as I do in this case).

If it was up to me, government-run (and financed) schools wouldn't even have proms. That kind of social function is not part of education. (Public schools here in France--which are far from perfect but nevertheless significantly better in terms of education than American public schools--do just fine without 90% of the "extra-curricular activities" that American schools provide, including proms.) That would be my first choice.

If they are going to have proms, though, I do not see why they should ban any activity that is not hurting anyone else. That goes for same-sex couples and a dress code. That would be my second choice.

Nevertheless, if that's not how the administrators want to do things, then I much prefer they not have them at all (which brings them pretty close to my first choice) rather than practice discrimination. What I am opposed to on principle (because of my strong attachment to freedom even for those beliefs I do not support) is that they be required to do things that are not necessary to their function (educating) in a way they do not like. I have no problem with them being required to avoid discrimination if they are going to do them, but being forced to change their dress code, or being required to hold a prom under circumstances they don't like, does not sit well with me.

This goes to the very core of the gay rights issue, but if everyone attending the prom is held to the same standard that (a) they will bring a date of the opposite gender and (b) they will dress in ways traditional for their gender, what could be more equal than that? From that perspective, it seems our heroine wanted to be treated exceptionally, not equally.

One cannot find a quote from God or Jesus forbidding homosexuality.

Therefore, if one were to apply strictly libertarian principles to the Bible, one could say that which was not specifically forbidden by God or his son must be allowed.

In any case, Tamar Garish has a point. Why do Christians accept divorce, for example, when it has been specifically forbidden by Jesus (save for grounds of adultery) - but do not accept homosexuality, which remains unmentioned by God and his son?

Separate but equal (in the US at least as that is the only country relevant to this story) was dismissed as a valid claim 50 years ago.

See Loving v. Virginia as reference that explicitly explains how your claim is not true. In that case the state of Virginia tried to argue that laws against interracial marriage were not discriminatory because they applied equally to both white and blacks, and the penalties for doing so also applied equally to members of all races.

The US supreme court ruled that despite the law being applied equally across all races, it was still discriminatory in nature.

edit: sad fact follows.

There's a fallacy there Bailey, but I'm not smart enough to explain it right now.

There is a fallacy if you try to apply it to the original situation that started this thread, I was specifically responding to the seperate but equal question that Rob Matter raised.

but is there a fallacy on a tread mill?

Prove that Paul never met Jesus? It's pretty much a given that it was God the Father (or just an epileptic fit) who knocked Saul of Tarsus off his horse.

So if you subscribe to the Trinity, then Saul/Paul only met God Sr., not the kid, up close and personal on that occasion.

If he ever met God Jr. in the flesh, you'd think there'd be some sort of fuss made over it, like the celebrated meeting of Jesus with John the Baptist (who, despite being his cousin, didn't recognize him at first...funny, that).

So I guess I'd have to ask you which verse in the New Testament relates to the historic meeting between Paul and the person for whom he presumed to be a mouthpiece for the rest of his life.

You'd think it would be obvious, wouldn't you?

For the same reason libertopians dig interstate highways and wars of adventure? Cherry-picking.

Mostly I think it's less conscious than that. For most people, philosophy is a matter of post-hoc rationalization. They know what they believe and they claim to adhere to whatever philosophy seems to best fit their beliefs. Thing is, they really do end up believing that their stated philosophy governs their beliefs rather than the other way around. The reason they get upset and incoherent when you ask how certain beliefs that don't seem to fit their stated philosophies actually fit their philosophies is that they don't really have an answer and it bothers them that they don't have an answer.

It's really important to most people that they perceive themselves as rational beings, as beings whose beliefs are governed by philosophy rather than the other way around. They want to believe this so much that they can't even content themselves with being rational most of the time rather than all the time. Therefore discordance between belief and philosophy brings about incoherence and much stamping of the feet rather than an admission that a certain belief simply isn't rationally held.

You just elaborated on what I said, using a lot more words.

I believe it's commonly understood that John wasn't confused about his mortal identity but whether or not he was indeed the Messiah.

Besides...I have a shit-ton of cousins I've never met and wouldn't recognize if I ran them over.

Paul hates sexuality? Where does that crap come from? Because he doesn't advocate fucking everything that moves?

Hell, I've run into cousins that I haven't seen for years and I didn't recognize them.

And vice versa: I ran into one of my cousins in a Costco parking lot a few years ago and, at first, I think she thought I was a mugger or something.

Uh, Jesus was not John's cousin. Not first cousin, in any case, which is what the term commonly means when it is not specified to mean something else. Mary and Elizabeth (their respective mothers) were not sisters but "relatives." That probably means that they were (at the closest) first cousins. Their sons are thus further removed from each other than that.

Some people aren't very good with fact-checking...