The Cost of Homophobia, $35, 000
Constance McMillen if you don’t know lives in a very conservative part of Mississippi called Itawamba County. She wanted to take her girlfriend to the prom. It seemed everyone else was taking someone they cared about, she thought she would too. Up until now prom and other things that used intimate relationships as a basis were not an option for gay teens, but things are beginning to change in the corners of the United States as well.
Your teen is growing up in a time that has for the most part asked it’s generation, “Get over it!” If they want to undergo the emotional destruction of a public broken heart by all means let them! Still parents resist, which creates teens that resist. This resistance can create a community that is accepting or ostracizing as this town in Mississippi did when it created a decoy prom so Constance and her girlfriend would not attend the “real” prom.
The cost of homophobia was a sum total of $35,000 in a town that resides in one of the poorest states in the United States. Surely there were far more important things they could have spent their money on with the unemployment rate still so high.
Stories like these are an important way you and your teen can discuss views on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender relationships (LGBT), your views on acceptance and whether you are someone who prefers to ostracize others you know little about. This is a harbinger of things to come for your teen if they happen to be gay and can create a chasm between you and your teen making it difficult for them to be open with you.
There will always be someone not like you especially in the United States, give your teen a heads up and a good lesson in economics about being open to someone else’s point of view. Being gay isn’t a disease, it isn’t catching or anything so the chances of your teen deciding suddenly they are gay is zero. Therefore it’s worth standing up for all people indivisible with liberty and justice for all just in case one of those individuals ends up being your teen.
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