A Long Island co-ed Catholic high school has banned same-sex couples from attending this year's prom, this after 17-year-old student Angelina Lange asked to bring her ex-girlfriend to the event. Lange was told by her Assistant Principal, Brother Joshua DiMauro, that she could only bring another girl if she was a fellow student and the two attended just as friends.

The Long Island Press lays out St. Anthony's policy for students attending prom:

There is first the question—and discrepancy—of price. For an opposite-sex “couple” to attend St. Anthony's prom together, they would pay $290, together, in one lump sum. For two same-sex “friends” to attend together they would pay $330, split in half, $165 apiece. (Again, to be clear, there is no option here recognizing a same-sex “couple.”)

Furthermore, for an opposite-sex couple to attend prom together, only one of the students has to attend St. Anthony's—the other is allowed to attend as a “date,” and can come from anywhere else. For a same-sex couple to attend prom together, both students have to attend St. Anthony's—because they would be doing so not as a couple, but as a pair of singles, and no singles outside St. Anthony's are allowed to attend St. Anthony's prom.

The school's Principal explains the unfair decision to prohibit gay couples:

"Our Catholic understanding of the sacrament of marriage is between a man and a woman. Every decision we make on the high school level has to reflect that teaching. Following then, logically, from that, if we were to approve of a same-sex couple coming to the prom, it would in a sense appear that we are approving same-sex marriage.”

The Long Island Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Services Network responds: "The message is that the school doesn't really care about its students and that's not a good message."