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First Gay Prom

Sayville is Gayest Suburb - Modern Sodom

First Gay Suburban Prom - World Gay Teen Capital - Sodom and Gomorrah

REPENT !  Sayville is 21st Century Sodom!  Gateway to Fire Island !  Nickname is "Gayville"    Newsday article below.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: David Kilmnick, CSW LIGALY / 2002, Revised: February 8, 2003 Executive Director 631-665-2300 June 7th Suburban Gay Prom Draws Youth From Across the United States Bay Shore, NY, May 28, 2002 – After grabbing national headlines in 2001 with “America’s first-ever full-fledged suburban gay prom,” Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth (LIGALY) will host its second annual gay prom.  The event, entitled “The LIGALY Prom - Pride Gala 2002,” will be held on June 7, 2002 at the Island Hills Golf and Country Club in Sayville, NY, and is attracting youth from across the United States. Youth from Florida, Ohio, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York are among the 150 teenagers who have already purchased their tickets. The theme for this year’s prom is “Out Under The Stars.” Prom goers will be treated to sky-tracker spot lights, a red carpet entrance, mocktail hour with hors d’oeuvres, a 4 hour buffet dinner, dessert station, DJ and dancing, live performances, radio personalities and live broadcast from KTU 103.5 FM, the premier performance of LIGALY’s dance troupe called, “LIGALY Pride,” and the crowning of the Rainbow Royalty Court.  The Rainbow Royalty Court is a tradition started at last year’s prom in which 6 youth are selected to represent the colors of the rainbow flag.  The Rainbow Flag is used to signify the diversity within the gay community. Last year (June 8, 2001) marked the first time in American history that a full-fledged gay prom was held in the suburbs.  Over 220 youth from 46 different schools in Suffolk and Nassau Counties, Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan and New Jersey attended LIGALY’s sold-out event.  The LIGALY prom provides a safe space for young people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender to bring a date of the same sex without fearing the harassment, discrimination and violence that is associated with being gay in high school.  Tickets at $40 each can be purchased by calling LIGALY at (631) 665-2300 or by logging onto www.ligaly.com. LIGALY is the only agency on Long Island solely dedicated to serving the needs of gay youth and their families since 1993.  LIGALY currently operates youth centers in Bay Shore and Riverhead, and provides services to over 1,000 youth, young adults, their families, schools and professionals every month. ###

2002 LIGALY / Revised: February 8, 2003

 

"Remember my one rule," Jenn's mom said as her daughter walked down the driveway in a long black dress. "No talking to the television cameras." To this, the 16-year-old responded in a tone perfected by countless generations of teenagers.
"Fine," she said in a near-moan as she climbed into her date's car.
"Jennifer," her mom said. "I'm serious." Jenn's prom, attended by roughly 220 other students from Long Island and New York City, had been billed as the first full-fledged prom for gay high school students ever to be held in the American suburbs.
But television cameras at a prom? Certainly, it is a rare prom where the theme song, "Free To Be" is performed live by Gioia, the pop star who wrote it. That happened at the Pride Gala in Sayville on Friday night, too.
Few proms need a police presence, either. Yet the organizers asked for, and received, several Suffolk police officers to guard the perimeter of the Island Hills Golf and Country Club, and off-duty volunteers from the Long Island chapter of the Gay Officers Action League were also providing security. They reported no incidents of protestors. And it's rare that merely attending a prom is considered by the attendees to be a political statement, as several of the kids who crowded into the ballroom said that it was for them. What brought out the cameras, the pop star, the police and the speeches from dozens of eager teenagers was simple: Boys were dancing with boys on Friday night, and girls were holding hands with girls.
"It shouldn't have to be a big deal," said Rachele Pellegrino, 17, a sophomore from Riverhead, as she nervously pulled on the back of her dress and stared down a bank of roughly a dozen cameras at the pre-prom press conference.
"This won't be a big deal for our kids, but someone has to do it first."
Even the organizers of the event were surprised by the attention the prom received.
"I was astounded," said David Kilmnick, the executive director of Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth, the Bay Shore-based group behind the event. "But the fact that it was a big deal shows just how far we have to go."
The event was not the first to claim the label of the first suburban gay prom. Another Long Island group, Pride For Youth in Bellmore, has hosted gay prom nights for four years at a house of worship run by the Ethical Humanist Society in Garden City. This year, on June 22, its prom will take a step up, to the Thatched Cottage, a catering hall in Centerport. And last year, in a Chicago suburb, a prom sponsored by a chapter of the Gay-Straight Alliance also billed itself as a suburban prom, though it too was held in a church. But Friday's event looked like any other prom. The kids at the prom were from 55 different high schools -- including 46 schools on Long Island and four in Queens -- and included many kids who said they wouldn't go to their own school's prom with the date of their choice because of the stares and nasty comments they would have received. One 18-year-old said he wouldn't even go to school, never mind the prom. "In the eighth grade, I refused to go," said Warren Malone of Oceanside. "The other kids were teasing me and hitting on me because I was too feminine. So the school district pays for a private tutor for me now." Malone came without a date, and didn't know anyone when he walked up the red carpet outside the country club. But the effusive teenager seemed to be making friends almost as fast as he was spitting out lines for the reporters. Eventually, the lure of the television cameras proved a strong one for Jenn, too, despite her mother's admonition. (Her mother, who said she was concerned with the way the television stations would treat the story, also requested that her daughter's last name and hometown be omitted from this article.) She slipped into a chair beside Rachele and waited her turn to speak. When she stood before an array of microphones, her voice was level and her point succinct.
"When you have a child you have all these expectations for who they are going to be," she said. "I don't think my mom thought, 'She's going to be a gay rights activist. She's going to march in parades.' But we are our parents' children, and they love us anyway." Afterwards, Jenn, who said she is bisexual, admitted that her mother was going to be upset with her for going against her wishes. "She was angry when I pierced my tongue, too," she said. "But I have to be proud of who I am."
Facing the eyes of the world, she was practically glowing with pride.
"I'm eating this up right now," she said. "I've never been so happy to be bisexual in my life."

Newsday
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