A word about lesbians…

So, Mississippi’s made the news, again. Have you heard?

Itawamba County’s School Board has decided to cancel the local high school’s prom because one student, a lesbian, wanted to wear a tuxedo and bring her girlfriend as her date.

Of course, the media is licking its chops, I’m sure, over this newest political deep-fried Panic Button. All the more so because it’s straight from the Heart of Dixie, also known as the Buckle of the Bible Belt. It was only a little more than a decade ago, wasn’t it?, when we were splayed across the nation’s newsrooms (again, the culprit being North Mississippi) over school prayer.

Today, it’s a gay girl and the threat of a prom.  (Though, the more serious danger, to me, would be the fact that a high school gym would be filled to the rim with acne, teenagers, and a spiked punch bowl).

I’m a bit confused, to be honest, about all of it. And what I think it boils down to isn’t really politics. It’s personalities…and the fact that change is only OK when it’s already happened; in other words, become tradition.

I grew up straddling generations: mine versus U.L.’s, who tipped his hat to Tigi’s generation which started at the end of the 19^th century. So, I’m well aware of the discrepancies between our two struggling cultures.

I’ve tried valiantly to marry these two competing frames of reference my entire life. I’ve tried to take what’s good about U.L.’s worldview and tie its thin thread of logic around the finger of my own, more liberal perspective.

Because I do not believe they are all that mutually exclusive.

No, they’re a lot more alike than we want to admit. What’s different, you see, isn’t our personal philosophies; it is Us. As individuals.

That’s why politics doesn’t work…and why it does.

Every issue that faces this country, and aside from “hurt feelings” and “recognition” (which, granted, are important in the world of politicizing), there are still far greater things to worry about, I think, than a lesbian in a tuxedo, dancing with her girlfriend.

Even if it’s in Mississippi.

Until the age of eighteen, I spent as much time in my homegrown Southern Baptist church as I did in school. I know all too well the fervor of conviction that guides the decisions most of Mississippi’s religious make.

I used to be just like them. And while there’s a lot of good in being that way, there’s an equal amount of bad in being that way. Which we ignore in the South.

And that’s the problem.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe in Jesus. But, I also believe in Red Bull. And what I mean by that is this: We are all grown-ups. We ought to know important from ridiculous. We ought to be able to distinguish between faith and fact. We ought to have no trouble recognizing progress from protest.

But, as Itawamba proves, we don’t.

What’s at stake here has nothing at all to do with “rules” or “policies.” It’s reputation that we’re worried about. It’s what people will think, what people will say about Us, about Mississippi, what they will say about our “personalities,” as a people, as southerners, and as Christians.

It’s about letting go of what we never questioned because we were afraid that if we did, we might find out that we were wrong. Or, heaven forbid, that there was more than way to answer the question. Because, like it or not, Christian or no, this young girl, this lesbian, is Mississippi, too.

I learned that lesson the hard way, myself.

When I was in college, I saw what my church friends were doing, behind closed doors. Hell, I was doing some of it myself. And I well remember a party I threw at my apartment one weekend in which, I’m certain, several people became pregnant, if not drunk, and high…and all those others things that were so, so “wrong.”

Don’t misunderstand: stupid people do stupid things, and when stupid things are done, there are consequences.

But, that’s not the same thing as morality.

It just leaves the same kind of scar.

In small doses, these friends accepted any number of “social ills” and “misfits.” Much like Jesus did, in his own day. But, there was an interesting correlation: as the number of people grew, the amount of support lessened.

For instance, no one minded that I was gay, at first. When it was just a few of us, hanging out. But, that evening, in my own apartment, when the number of those who had congregated grew into double-digits, and we were sitting around my den playing Truth or Dare, and my “truth” was brought out (because I didn’t think it was that big of a deal; it was old news to me—plus, it was MY APARTMENT), well God Above, you would have thought the world exploded.

I was mortified. I would never do anything to intentionally harm my family’s good name or embarrass myself, but I mean, for the love of God, where was all the support I’d been given, earlier?

Who was the bigger coward: Me, for facing my personality, my own struggles, or the fair-weathers, who were so worried about what “people would think” for befriending a homosexual?

This is why, in my opinion, politics will never truly work; we cannot separate ourselves from our upbringing. It’s why the majority never represents the majority. Because any majority must necessarily be incestuous, and feed on itself. It’s philosophical cannibalism.  When any given Congressman is sitting in his/her office weighing the consequences of their decisions, their upcoming votes, when he/she is all alone and searches within to find the “truth,” what do you think they rely on?

Nine out of ten times, their faith, I believe. Whatever it may be. Currently, the majority of our Congressmen are Christians.

And their internecine struggle forces us all to constantly compromise…which may work on the larger issues: democracy, health care reform, I don’t know…but it never seems to work on the smaller issues, which really aren’t, in retrospect, issues at all. They’re scapegoats.

I mean, really: the entire prom is cancelled because of a tuxedo and a lesbian? 

I can’t even remember if I went to my prom. (I did, but you get the point).

Besides, it was the after-party that needed supervision.

But, let’s stay pragmatic about it, shall we? Let’s make this a “teachable moment.” What is learned by cancelling the prom? What does the student body benefit from this decision?

I can’t think of a single, real thing.

I mean, with school prayer, an actual constitutional right was being re-addressed, that of the separation of church and state. And as much as I believe in God, Jesus, Christianity, the Works, I also recognize the importance of the Separation of Church and State. I believe in that, too.

But, what’s the lesson with this current Mississippi joke of “standing up for what we believe is right?” This cancelled prom?

All I can think of is this: If you’re going to stand up for what you believe in around here, you better make sure it’s on the right foot.

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