Jeff Bennett, community editor over at ProudParenting.com and contributor to the Family Equality Council Blog posted about the SC principal's resignation here.

I have somewhat of a personal connection to the story, which I explain in my own follow-up post. I grew up about an hour south of Columbia, SC. Irmo High is located just outside of Columbia. For various reasons, I had friends in high school who attended Irmo. They, like I, could have really used a GSA back then -- not so long ago, really -- but when I was in school GSAs were virtually unheard of, in my neck of the woods at least.

We were closeted. We were scared. We were often harassed and bullied. We certainly felt excluded every day from the "normal" activities teenagers participate in. Some of us went toe-to-toe with administrators like this one -- sometimes winning, sometimes losing.

I didn't try to start a GSA, but I was the editor of the school paper my sophomore year, and I tried to publish an article about hate crimes committed against and by youth. Because of it's controversial nature, I had to get the vice principal in charge of student activities to approve it. He read it while I sat in his office, sighed, and then point blank asked me, "Whatever happened to good news?" and told me I couldn't run the story.

I managed to get the backing of my advisor and published it anyway. Who knows if that VP knew I was gay or sensed it. I hadn't fully resolved it at that point myself. But I do so clearly remember feeling trapped, like I couldn't really explain to him the urgency or the need to publish such an article and spark such a debate. I was doing all of this from the soundproof quarters of the closet.

Anyway, I bring this story about Irmo High School to Bilerico for two reasons:

1.) It's newsworthy and Bilerico readers like to stay in the know! So check out Jeff's post and the Associated Press article to read up on the details.

2.) More importantly, I wanted to enlist some Bilerico readership help! The Family Equality Council Blog is relatively small with certainly less action in the comments than blogs like Bilerico. After Jeff posted about the SC principal, some guy with very contrary views picked up on it and posted (read: smeared) his views all over our blog! A couple of our avid readers have been going back and forth with him in the comments, but I thought others might want to chime in, as well. You're a saucy crowd, you Projectors, you. You can see the post and the comments here.

Your cross-participation is much appreciated. And to the students in Irmo, South Carolina who pushed this thing through and sent their bigoted principal packing, good for you and Godspeed!