"We're willing to sponsor a prom, but not an orgy."

Kellenberg High School in Uniondale, Long Island (New York) is run by the Marianists (the Society of Mary), a Roman Catholic Religious order. Brother Kenneth M. Hoagland, its principal, has just cancelled the school's biggest social event, the spring prom:

"It is not primarily the sex/booze/drugs that surround this event, as problematic as they might be; it is rather the flaunting of affluence, assuming exaggerated expenses, a pursuit of vanity for vanity's sake -- in a word, financial decadence," Hoagland said, fed up with what he called the "bacchanalian aspects."

Amen, Brother Kenneth (but we're not sure why you're soft-pedaling the sex, booze and drugs). It appears that a boat was being chartered for an after-prom "booze-cruise," a $10,000 down payment had been made on the rental of a house in the tony Hamptons for a post-prom party house, and so on and so on.

From CNN. On the school's web site Brother Kenneth's two letters regarding the prom are reproduced: First, a letter sent in March, and then a follow-up in September. They're worth reading.

I'm requesting my friends at dial-a-verse to provide an appropriate Scriptural reference.

Personally, I'm proposing Judges 10:14, "Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation."