A small Indiana community best known for its parks and corn festival has become the center of a national discussion about intolerance over a group’s plans to host a “traditional” prom that bans gay students.

Residents and officials in Sullivan, a city of about 4,200 near the Illinois border, are scrambling to escape the uncomfortable spotlight cast when a teacher supporting the “traditional” prom for Sullivan High School said she believes people choose to be gay and that gays have no purpose in life.

“I just … I don’t understand it,” Diana Medley, referring to gays, told Terre Haute television station WTWO.

The comments by Medley, a special education teacher in a neighboring school district, have gone viral and sparked online campaigns to have her fired. A petition on Change.org calling for her dismissal had generated more than 17,500 signatures from as far away as the United Kingdom as of Thursday, and a Facebook page supporting a prom that includes all students had more than 27,000 likes.

The fallout has surprised many residents, who say the issue roiling the community in an area known for coal mining and attractive parks is being blown out of proportion.

“We are conservative around here. That’s just the way of this town,” said Nancy Woodard, 60, who owns the Hidden Treasure Exchange store. “In any town in this county, you’ll find four or five churches no matter how small the town. … The Bible is a big belief system here.

“Everybody has jumped on this little town. To me, there isn’t any need for it,” she said.

Sullivan High School Principal David Springer said talk of the “traditional” prom began in January, after a student began circulating a petition demanding that gays be allowed to participate in the grand march at Sullivan’s April 27 prom. The “traditional” prom would not be sanctioned by the district and wouldn’t be held at the school.

Springer said the school, which has 545 students in grades 9-12, has never banned same-sex pairs from the event.

“I’ve been to eight grand marches and … we always had girls go out together, and a lot of times they just didn’t have a date,” Springer said. “Our prom is open to all of our students.”

But others say calls for a “traditional” prom, fueled by Medley’s comments, speak to a larger climate in which gay students fear being bullied and aren’t welcome.

“When someone says your kid has no purpose, how do you think that makes a parent feel?” asked Annette Gross, Indiana state coordinator for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), whose son came out at age 19.

Aaron Gettinger, a 20-year-old Stanford University student who graduated from Sullivan High in 2011, said he isn’t surprised by the push for a “traditional” prom that would ban gay students. He said he was bullied daily because he is gay and encountered viewpoints similar to those espoused by Medley.

“It’s just the way that it is,” he said. “It’s part of a way of thinking that the rest of the country needs …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News