Getting some play today is a news story from Cranston, Rhode Island, about a ridiculous decision by the Cranston school board banning father-daughter dances.  It’s the old pattern.  A girl felt left out because she had no one to take her to the father-daughter dance.  Mom called the ACLU.  The ACLU, which couldn’t care less about the feelings of teenage girls, used the mom’s disgruntlement to push its agenda of eliminating “gender stereotyping.”  One threat was enough to make the school board kneel in submission and avoid legal fees.

What’s especially insidious is the language used by Rhode Island ACLU Exec. Dir. Steven Brown, in a statement issued on September 18: “the school district recognized that in the 21st Century, public schools have no business fostering the notion that girls prefer to go to formal dances while boys prefer baseball games. This type of gender stereotyping only perpetuates outdated notions of ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ activities and is contrary to federal law.”

Of course there are no such things as girl and boy activities, which is why Rhode Island public schools have separate boys and girls basketball, cross country, ice hockey, indoor track, lacrosse, outdoor track, soccer, swimming, tennis, and volleyball.  I’m sure they have unisex locker rooms and showers, and I bet they’ve eliminated all urinals, as the very presence of those oppressive ceramic commodes would constitute, I dunno, genital-specific excretory discrimination.

I’m sure they’d have great success if they’d just inaugurate some Father-Son Dances and Mother-Daughter Tractor Pulls.  I bet they’d be as popular as the WNBA.