High school's 'Cutest Couple' is two (very cute) boys

'Cutest Couple' voters at Carmel High School in New York overwhelmingly chose a gay couple as 'cutest' in the school. The young men say they're getting teased for their internet fame, but not for their relationship.

|
Courtesy Carmel High School / AP
These gay teens were voted 'Cutest Couple' by their peers at a high school in New York. The 'Cutest Couple' has since become an Internet sensation.

The duo voted "cutest couple" in the senior class at a suburban New York high school say they're getting teased about it — but not because they're both boys.

"Yeah, our friends are giving it to us about being Internet famous," said 18-year-old Dylan Meehan, a senior at Carmel High School.

"We've never had any problems at all," added 17-year-old senior Brad Taylor. "As a matter of fact, before the results, people were telling us ahead of time, 'You guys are going to win hands down.'"

The gay couple's selection — a first at Carmel High — has become an online sensation, driven by a yearbook photo of the smiling boys in a close embrace. A friend's blog with the photo had more than 110,000 hits Monday, and it was cited in stories on several major news sites.

They received so much attention that they released a statement saying "the whole thing has been a bit surreal."

They said that when they first started dating a year ago, "the thought of a photo of us traveling throughout the world would be a bit frightening, but now we are proud to be part of the LGBT community."

Other students said the boys are well-liked and always willing to help younger students as part of the school's mentoring program.

"They're very accepted because they're so loving — toward everybody," said freshman Cristal Leiva.

Principal Kevin Carroll said tolerance is stressed all the time at the school, but he thinks acceptance of gays is not much of an issue for current high schoolers.

"You can still hear about a gay man being attacked in New York City," he said, referring to a recent killing in Greenwich Village, "but these kids don't think that way."

However, officials were concerned enough that they checked with the boys and their parents before the "cutest couple" selection was memorialized in the yearbook.

Meehan's mother, Diane Maher, said, "My concern always is for his safety," but her son has had no problems at school. "He's in a healthy, positive relationship. They encourage each other to do well."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to High school's 'Cutest Couple' is two (very cute) boys
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/2013/0604/High-school-s-Cutest-Couple-is-two-very-cute-boys
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe