By John Mack Freeman
Quitman High School in Arkansas banned a homecoming speech by a 15-year-old homecoming court member because she had planned to discuss being a lesbian during her speech. Despite the student agreeing to revise her speech, the school banned all of the speeches this year. Via Advocate.com:
After the rehearsal, she and her parents told school officials she would remove the lesbian content from the speech. But administrators went ahead and canceled all the speeches anyway, KARK reports.
“After she changed it, I don’t think it should’ve been as big of an issue as it is,” Jennifer Bowen, a friend of the student, told the station. Bowen continued, “It just kind of reverses how I’ve been taught what our community really is. It was a matter of standing up for who you are and what makes you you. And I don’t think we’re allowed to do that.”
School administrators were “completely liberal” about whatever other topics students wanted to address, including religion, said another schoolmate, Bree Mash. The student who planned to talk about being a lesbian “feels like she’s been singled out and it’s not fair,” Mash told KARK.
