An Ohio man recently threatened queer high school students who were crowned prom king and queen. He was arrested shortly after by the Kettering Police Department.
Brandon Moore, 42, allegedly called Kettering Fairmont High School and made a “broad threat.” Immediately after the threat was made, school officials called the police. The police department then sent officers to guard the school according to Dayton 24/7 Now.
Last month, two queer students, Dai’sean Conley and Rosie Green, were elected Kettering Fairmont High School’s prom queen and king. They are both 18 years old and POC.
“Even when I was given the crown and I put on my head, there’s a lot of boos in the crowd,” Conley told WDTN-TV. “I didn’t hear them. I only heard the congratulating, which I was very thankful for.”
A meeting of the Kettering Board of Education took place on May 2, organized by local adults who disagreed with the crowning of the queer teens. A local man named Joe Overholser told the board that he believed prom king and queen should be determined by the winners’ biological sex.
“I’m concerned about what’s going on in the schools. I’m concerned about normalizing the idea of questioning gender,” he told Dayton Daily News.
Luckily, many community members showed up outside of the board meeting to show that not everyone in Kettering feels that way. About 40 supportive adults and children gathered outside and waved rainbow flags and held signs with supportive messages for the queer king and queen. One crowd member told Dayton Daily News they wanted the teens’ supporters to be “louder than the hate inside” at the board meeting.
“It’s so unfortunate, I don’t know what kind of person can send a threat to children. What kind of person is that?” said Michael Knote, the executive director of the local LGBTQ+ rights organization Have a Gay Day, to WHIO-TV in reference to Moore’s arrest.
