Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who told state colleges and universities that they needed to end discrimination bans for LGBTs [1], is now making it even clearer where he stands. Cuccinelli was asked on video whether gay acts are detrimental to our culture. In response, he says: "The acts are. You certainly want everybody in your society to be integrated in the society, so, that's a focus that I'd like to take, but there's a distinction. And it's one that the General Assembly seems to be wrestling with every year, and we'll leave that one to them for now." Watch below. (Thanks to Towleroad [2] for the find). [1] http://www.365gay.com/news/virginia-ag-seeks-to-cut-gays/ [2] http://www.towleroad.com/2010/03/virginia-ag-ken-cuccinelli-homosexual-acts-a-detriment-to-our-culture.html

Taking a stand is part of growing up. Often an act of rebellion, taking a stand brings a sense of pride, accomplishment, purpose and maturity. My high school stand took place my junior year, in gym class and at home. The story goes something like this: I was registered for a four-week session in basketball, but on the first day of class the physical education teacher decided to exercise what she thought was absolute authority over her students and switched the class. She announced that we would participate in four weeks of disco dancing, which would culminate with each student performing a choreographed routine. Panic quickly escalated to outrage. Maybe my teacher was going to cheat me out of some basketball games, but no way was she going to make me dance disco. I took a seat on a mat in the corner of the gym and refused to participate. I refused to dance every day that first week and, at the end of the week, my gym teacher called my mom to tell her I was disrupting class and would get a failing grade for the session. My mom and I had a sit-down. She held hostage my upcoming spring break, a ski trip to Colorado: “You can either dance and go to Colorado, or stay home and take an F.” I took a stand. “Then I’ll stay home and take an F.” And my mom decided to stand with me. She called the gym teacher to tell her I was old enough to make decisions for myself, that I clearly felt strongly about refusing to dance and that no one should be able to tell me how to use my body. Mom also didn’t cancel the ski trip. I’ve boasted of that stand for nearly three decades — usually to give credibility to my wall-flower pose at a club. It was huge for me to spend four weeks staging a sit-in in gym, confronting the giggles of classmates, ignoring the glare of my teacher, taking pride in standing by my conviction that disco sucked. Too bad I still had to hear to the music. My stand still seems significant 29 years later. But it pales in comparison to Aaron Fricke’s stand a year earlier, when he bravely asked a boy to his prom and then fought a legal battle to attend the dance. I’m reminded of Fricke’s heroics and his legal achievement with the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders as another student, all these years later, fights to take her girlfriend to a prom in Mississippi. Constance McMillen, with the support of her family, the American Civil Liberties Union and a legion of fans nationwide, is challenging her school board’s decision to cancel prom rather than allow her to attend with a same-sex date. Fricke’s battle 30 years ago in Cumberland, R.I., was different in the development of events, but similar in principle. He had been ostracized, harassed and taunted by classmates, but still decided to ask another boy to his junior prom. “Through all of my high school years I had been left out and I was tired of it,” Fricke later wrote in his autobiography, “Reflections of a Rock Lobster: A Story About Growing Up Gay.” “I wanted to be part of a group like the other students.” Also, he wrote, he wanted to make a political statement to his classmates about his dignity and value as a human being – attending the prom on his terms was a declaration of equality. To attend the dance, he needed to secure a federal court order. A year before my much-smaller struggle to not dance, Fricke made a federal case for his right to dance with the partner of his choice. He wore a powder-blue tux and his date wore navy. He took a stand and today, when attorneys and civil rights activists advise LGBT students and their parents to take a stand at school, they encourage them to read about Aaron Fricke and cite his landmark case. The story of my stand -  well, maybe that would have made a nice after-school special on TV. The story of Fricke’s stand - well, I would have liked to have seen that become a John Hughes movie. Call it maybe “Bravery in Blue.”