SULLIVAN, Ind. (AP) — 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 to know still exists and goes on."
Organizers of the "traditional" prom declined to comment, and it's unclear whether the event will still happen.
School officials and the minister of a church where planners met Sunday have worked to distance themselves from the flap.
Dale Wise, the church's senior minister at Sullivan First Christian Church, said his church turned off its fax machine and took its website offline Tuesday because both were the target of hate mail and pornographic messages.
Wise said the planning group met at the church because it allows community meetings to take place there but the church "had no affiliation whatsoever" with the "traditional" prom effort.
Springer said his staff has been inundated with calls and emails about Medley, whom he noted doesn't work for his school. She teaches in the Northeast School Corp., a neighboring district.
Neither Medley nor Northeast officials returned calls seeking comment. The district issued a statement this week saying Medley was "expressing her First Amendment rights" and that "the views expressed are not the views of the Northeast School Corporation and/or the Board of Education."
Sullivan isn't alone in its struggles over how to handle same-sex couples at proms. A small southeast Missouri school district is facing a threat of legal action over a policy barring same-sex couples from attending prom together.
The Southern Poverty Law Center on Thursday accused the Scott County Central School District in Sikeston of discrimination and gave the district until Feb. 25 to revise the school dance policy or face a potential lawsuit.
Sullivan High School freshman Te'Airra Walters, 15, said it shouldn't be a big deal for a same-sex couple to attend prom together. She said she doesn't like the negative attention the controversy has attracted.
"People from other schools around here are saying Sullivan is trashy," she said. "I think it's pretty much ridiculous."
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Associated Press writer Charles Wilson in Indianapolis contributed to this story.