With the looming end of the final six weeks, semesters, and overall school year, come many things. For the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, most of the eventfulness ended with the STAAR testing. For seniors, the buzz of prom has been around for months, leading up to the Monte Carlo-themed bash.

 
Though Austin’s liberal values counter those of traditional Texas, there is still some push concerning whether or not gays, or those associated with the LGBTQ community should be allowed to attend their prom.

 
Of course, though a majority of people at school would go down the route of approval, there still remains some slight hesitance; a confirmation that gay is, in fact, okay.
These are where my problems begin. Though we’re lucky to be free of the bigotry found in some of our neighboring areas, an unnecessary hesitance still remains, and it is one that I don’t completely understand.

 
Must we really ask ourselves if two members of the same sex can go to prom together? There are countless comparisons that I could make. Questions like allowing certain races to attend, for example. Regardless, this sort of rethinking makes the pro-queer message seem halfhearted, and in a way meaningless.

 
One of the many types of news stories that are popular around prom season are those about proms denying gay students access to the dance. There are multiple different responses to these stories. On one side, gay or otherwise unaccepted students could attend the prom anyway, or separately from their date. On the other hand, they could organize their own open prom, which I don’t exactly understand.

 
In Austin, there was an Out Youth Gay Prom in April. In any context other than simply having one so a number of individuals can get together and express themselves, holding a separate prom just for alternate sexualities or identities seems counterproductive. As a whole, many aspects of prom seem unnecessary to me. Why would anyone want to track if two members of the same sex were going to a dance together? Again, this seems to be useless. Simple things come to mind with these issues. I see no real point. Is their dancing more homosexual than that of other students? Infectious, one might say? Obviously not.

 
Regardless, it can be taken for granted that we live in such an accepting area of an at times hateful state. We should acknowledge the fact that we can have a relatively unquestioned prom where no one is excluded.