Today in the show must go on-ing:

You know who are a bunch of goddamn heroes? These kids. Which kids? Yeah, fine, don't bother clicking on the link, I'll just explain. These kids are students from Carroll High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, who when their play was cancelled, raised a ton of money to go ahead and do it anyway. Amazing, right? 

Pictured: basically, the students from Carroll High.

Robin Hood's been many things, Errol Flynn,
an investment app, even a sexy fox, so it's not
like queer woman is much of a stretch.

Huh? No? Oh, maybe some context is in order then. The play, Marion or the True Tale of Robin Hood, is a take on the Robin Hood story, which presupposes that Robin and Marion were one and the same, and--you can see where this is going right? Mid-western high school? Queer themes? Pearls on standby to be clutched. Anyway, according to the students, absurdly named principal Cleve Million--so, five hundred grand?--signed off on the production until a group of parents, presumably drunk on Fox News and transphobia, demanded that the play be cancelled. 

Above: Cleve Million seen here, shortly
after caving in to the parent's demands.

Evidently Million received some phone calls and was concerned for the students safety and so he made the decision to call off Marion. Which, I mean, let's be absolutely clear on this point: people were calling the principal and saying something that led him to believe that it would be best to call off the show for the students' safety. So my question is, what were these people saying? Were they threatening students? Are parents threatening kids? Because if that's the case, shouldn't Million have, I don't know, called the police? 

And while were at it, could he maybe
explain the name? I mean, Cleve? Million?

Look, I'm a childless shut-in who really doesn't care for kids. Or pets. Or plants. But threatening kids is probably a crime. And the response to threatening students shouldn't be to cancel their show and give the threateners exactly what they want. This is how terrorism works. We know this because we fought two entire wars premised on the idea that we don't give in to terrorists. I mean, in those cases we didn't actually go after the people who attacked us, but that's neither here nor there. The point is the answer here isn't to punish the victims. For Cleve Million the answer should be to either investigate these threatening calls and to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, or, if there were no threats, and Million just decided to wuss out, to explain why he's such a gigantic coward.  

As for the students, the answer is to put on the play without the support of the school. To that end, they've started a fundraiser to raise the necessary fifty thousand dollars. Framing this--and rightly so--not only as a stand against the bullies who torpedoed the play, but also against the general and unrelenting attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community in general, they've raised eighty-two thousand dollars. Of money. For a high school play. In Indiana. So, like I was saying, these kids are goddamn heroes.

It doesn't even matter how the show goes, what matters is that a bunch of cowards
who shrieked threats into a phone aren't going to get what they want.