Imagine all the glitz and glam of your high school prom. Then transplant it to Binghamton University’s Mandela Room.

Then turn it gay.

That’s what you’ll get at the Rainbow Pride Union’s Gay Prom event, which will begin at 8 p.m. It’ll cost you about $10, and it’s going to be fabulous. A bunch of us here at Pipe Dream will be in attendance, and we think you should too. Just bring a same-sex partner. You don’t have to, but it’ll help get everyone into the spirit of things. We know we will.

Why, you ask, are we recommending that you drop the equivalent of a drink and a half downtown to go hang out with a bunch of queers in semi-formal attire?

First off, here’s your chance to go another prom — your very own prom, too! Not everyone gets to go to their high school prom (or wants to, for that matter, and that’s cool too). But why not go and re-enact (or enjoy for the first time) an event that for most people is alternatively the best, worst, craziest, most emotional, most decked-out night of their young lives? Hell, it’s open to anybody 17 and older, which (for better or worse) will even help give it that real-prom feel — but without all the stuff that sucked about the real prom, including but not limited to ridiculously expensive tickets, date drama, limo drama, (bad) prom sex, posing like a cardboard cutout for photos, trying and failing to get the perfect date, teachers as chaperons, hand-on-waist dancing and even trouble getting liquor. For that, just go downtown afterwards. We sure are.

Most importantly, though, a visit to the Gay Prom will bring home to anyone that the Rainbow Pride Union, and the people it represents, aren’t just living some far-off “alternative lifestyle” on the fringes of BU life. Queers are an important part of campus life, whether you know they’re queer or not. They’re here and they’re not going anywhere, and are becoming a force to be reckoned with politically to boot.

So go to gay prom and steep yourself in a feeling that you probably never thought you were missing: total acceptance. The Rainbow contains every color on the spectrum for a reason.