Pl

People

Gay teen's

prom date has school

TES

in a tizzy

119

From wire reports

Paul, an avowed homosexual, wants permission to take another boy to the junior prom at Cumberland High School on May 4, and school officials in Cumberland, R.I., don't know what to do.

"I feel I have every right to go, just as any other junior does," Paul, 17, said "I thought it's about time somebody did it. It's time I stood up for what I believe in."

The school administration has asked the system's lawyer for a legal opinion said Robert G. McGinnis, assistant school superintendent for Cumberland, a town of about 30,000 people in northern Rhode Island.

Paul whose father asked that his last name be withheld, said students are not allowed to go to the prom alone.

"My father is not liberal-minded. He thinks a junior prom is for a guy and a girl,” Paul said.

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