Ferndale gets jolt at prom: His royal highness is an open lesbian
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FERNDALE, Whatcom County - People in this town are annoyed with Krystal Bennett. It's not because she's a lesbian, they say, but because she demeaned a time-honored high-school tradition.
What happened is this: On April 28, at the Ferndale High School senior prom, Bennett was voted prom king.
No one in Ferndale, including Bennett, knows whether the vote was a joke or a statement.
But by embracing the gender-bending election results, Bennett, the only openly gay student at Ferndale High School, caused waves of consternation to ripple through this town near the Canadian border.
In response, the high school is crafting a policy to ensure that at future proms, the king will be male, the queen female.
The rule will protect traditional gender roles, but it does not address a deeper issue. In Ferndale, Bennett's coronation is seen by some as another example of pushy homosexuals promoting their agenda.
"What it does, this whole thing, is that it imposes something on society that, if truth be known, our society is not yet ready to accept," said Tina Mauler, a parent of a Ferndale High student. "These types of things ultimately will lead to chaos."
In interviews, many in Ferndale said they are not prepared to embrace homosexuals, at least not to the extent they have been in urban areas.
"When you talk about a big city like Seattle, you're talking about people who have an incredibly wide range of experiences, values, viewpoints," said Father Tim Sauer of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Ferndale.
"And one would hardly say that a metropolis like Seattle is, shall we say, deeply imbued with a Christian message.
"But in a community like this, the influence of Christianity and the Christian church is a lot more strong. And as a group, I think you have a lot of people here who live more by traditional values because of their rural nature and because of their faith."
Ferndale City Councilman Albert Lavine is one such person. A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he said he would not tolerate homosexuality in his house.
"It was better when they were in the closet than out," Lavine said. "I definitely wouldn't want my children to be homosexual."
But, like other Ferndale residents, Lavine tempers his disdain with a dose of libertarianism: He doesn't care what other people do in their own homes, as long as they keep it to themselves.
"If it doesn't hurt anybody, leave it alone," he said. "I (know) somebody who is a switch-hitter. It don't bother me."
For many in the town of nearly 9,000, religion is the main lens through which gays are viewed. Ferndale has more than 15 churches, with more just outside of town.
"When you talk about things from a Christian perspective, it is clear that God's plan and design was for sexual relations to be between a man and a woman," Sauer said.
His church teaches that homosexual sex is a sin. But it also teaches that gays can be accepted because in Christianity, Sauer said, "the clear dictum is hate the sin but love the sinner."
Some in Ferndale use this idea to promote a tolerance of homosexuals that contains a significant caveat: Hate the sin, love the sinners, but lovingly try to change them.
"I guarantee the vast majority of our school thinks there is something a little bit disgusting or very wrong about homosexuality," said Landin Fusman, student-body president of Ferndale High.
"(But) if you think it's wrong, try to change them in a loving fashion. Treat them just like you would any other friend who is doing something wrong."
'It turned into a problem'
The night of the Ferndale prom, every student who showed up was handed a ballot and told to write in one person for king and one for queen.
Bennett came with her date, Connie Terrell, who doesn't go to the school. She wore a tuxedo. And she said she voted for herself as king, partly on a lark and partly because she wanted the title. Bennett said some of her friends voted for her, too.
The prom queen was Kara Johnson. Her boyfriend, Joey Joshua, was runner-up for King. Johnson said neither she nor Joshua minded that Bennett was elected.
"It's not that big of a deal," she said. "It's high school. Let it go."
But the next week at school, many were not ready to let go.
"The fact that I was a girl and because of the fact that I was gay - well, it turned into a huge problem," Bennett said.
Parents started calling the principal. A local talk-radio program picked up the issue. Soon curious reporters started turning up in Ferndale, and Bennett began drawing stares at the grocery store.
Overblown? Disgrace?
Bennett also got people at school talking.
"My parents, they were like disgraced by it," senior Chris Pitcher, 18, said one recent afternoon as a group of students gathered outside Ferndale High to talk about the prom-king vote.
Like others, Pitcher said the whole thing has been overblown. The prom was lame anyway, he said.
"It was too small," he said. "Gay music."
"That's what boys say when they don't like stuff," explained his friend, senior Heather Hartman.
"It's not derogatory," added senior Jason Guthrie. "It just means dumb, stupid."
And everyone knows not to say stuff like that around Bennett.
"She bites your head off," Hartman said.
'Somebody had to stand up'
When Bennett was a young girl she made up a song called "I'm a Girl Lover." She has always known she was gay.
In her freshman year at Ferndale, Bennett told some friends about her sexuality, and they told other people, and pretty soon Bennett was out. Since then, she's been called the usual names.
She's also taken to activism, lobbying to increase the number of books in the school library that deal with homosexuality (there were four; 15 more are coming), criticizing the school's annual Peace Week for failing to address discrimination against gays, and joining the Ferndale Diversity Coalition.
"To me, it's the same kind of thing as the civil-rights movement," she said. "Somebody had to stand up and say, 'I'm not going to be oppressed and be silent.' "
The principal of Ferndale High won't discuss the prom-king issue, but Fusman, the Ferndale student-body president, said the new rule regarding prom votes should keep such a furor from erupting again.
For Bennett, all the fuss has made her rethink her future plans. She used to imagine herself staying in Whatcom County.
"(Now) I'm not sure if I want to stick around here locally after some of the comments and things that I've heard," Bennett said. "I'm not sure if I want to surround myself with that negativity."
Like many gay people from rural towns, she thinks about moving to a big city, maybe Seattle.
"It's a bigger city, more diversity," she said. "And somewhere not here."
Eli Sanders can be reached at 206-748-5815 or esanders@seattletimes.com.