image Constance McMillen Clarion Ledger photo by Matthew Sharpe

Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton, Mississippi cancelled the school prom Wednesday after officials learned that an 18-year-old senior, Constance McMillen, planned to attend the dance with her girlfriend and to wear a tuxedo to the annual event, which had been scheduled for April 2.

In a message to students announcing the cancellation, the school board suggested that a private group should host an independent prom instead, Jacksonville Clarion Ledger reports.

“We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this causes anyone,” the message concluded.

McMillen told the Clarion Ledger that the board’s action is retaliation.

“That's really messed up,” she said, “because the message they are sending is that if they have to let gay people go to prom that they are not going to have one.”

When school administrators told her last month that she wouldn’t be allowed into the prom with her girlfriend, McMillen contacted American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi which sent a letter to the district asking them to drop objections to same-sex dates. The school board responded with its letter cancelling the prom.

More...

image This video has become a viral hit on YouTube. ‘TheColonelFrog’—Micah Schraft, who uploaded it Tuesday evening explains, “This moment was captured the day after thanksgiving. We bought our flip cam two days before and were testing it out. We were on our way to the kitchen when Calen stopped us to ask for help washing his hands.”

His conclusion after figuring out that the two men he’d just met are married to each other: “That means you love each other.”

So far, that moment of innocent acceptance has been viewed about 110,000 times.

One of the hundreds of comments to the video, a poster writes, “Aww that kid is soo adorbale. And honest. Kids don’t really see [anything] wrong with that, just a shame they can’t all take that into adulthood.”

Schraft told the Advocate that he’d recently come across the video when clearing out his harddrive.

“Then I sent it to his parents and said, ‘Isn’t this cute?’ They thought it was adorable, and we told them we were going to put it on Facebook,” Schraft explained. “This was 36 hours ago, and we woke up this morning and it was like, ‘17,000 people have viewed this video.’”

image San Francisco LGBT Center Flickr photo by CTG/SF

    ::: A committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors yesterday moved to delay final action on a request by the city’s LGBT Center for a loan to prevent foreclosure on its $12.3 million building, which opened in March 2002, Bay Area Reporter reports. The center is asking the city for a $157,500 loan, to help it through a financial pinch, according to San Francisco Chronicle. Supervisors on the board’s budget and finance committee yesterday expressed support for the center, but asked for more details on the center’s financial future, including possible new funding sources, BAR reports. Rebecca Rolfe, the center’s executive director, told supervisors that $300,000 has been cut from the center’s budget through staff reductions and other means. The LGBT Center and its staff of 24 offer an array of services, including counseling, job training, HIV prevention, and arts programs. In a statement [pdf], the Center says that it “serves over 9,000 people each month and hosts over 3,000 programs and workshops each year.” Of its $1.8 million budget, $777,000 consists of city contracts, the Chronicle reports. Supervisors are expected to consider the loan request again in two weeks.