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New Orleans developer Sean Cummings

Hotel-condo developer Sean Cummings, who is spearheading the post-Katrina effort to rejuvenate New Orleans’ riverfront, is among business and cultural leaders rallying in support of Constance McMillen, the 18-year-old Mississippi senior whose challenge to the Itawamba County School Board’s policy against same-sex dates resulted in cancellation of her school’s prom.

The Clarion-Ledger reported that Cummings offered to transport Itawamba Agricultural High School students by bus  to one of his properties for a prom free of charge.  The newspaper also reported that Canadian film director Paul Saltzman offered to provide a screening of his documentary Prom Night in Mississippi as part of the entertainment at a private prom for the students. Saltzman’s documentary, which was screened at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, is about the first racially integrated prom at Charleston High School in north Mississippi — a prom paid for by Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman, who lives in Mississippi.

Mississippi Safe Schools Coalition, an advocacy group for gay students in Mississippi, said they have been fielding dozens of offers from around the nation to hold a prom for students at Itawamba Agricultural Highoded by people looking to help. “We have so many people willing to donate money, resources, time,” he told the Clarion-Ledger. “We are trying to figure out what we are going to do.”

The Mississippi chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit in federal court conteding the school board’s actions violated McMillen’s First Amendment rights to freedom of expression. The suit asks the judge to reverse the district’s decision and reinstate the school’s prom.

On another gay rights front, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that Republican Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell is getting heat after the state’s Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli wrote a March 4 letter to Virginia’s public colleges and universities instructing them to remove sexual orientation from their anti-discrimination policies.  Cuccinelli said the General Assembly had not expressly authorized such protections.

McDonnell’s has tried to reassure state workers that discrimination of any kind, including sexual orientation, will not be tolerated.  But gay-rights advocates have criticized McDonnell for not including sexual orientation in an executive order banning discrimination in the state work force.

The Virginia dispute drew the attention of William and Mary grad Jon Stewart, who wondered on The Daily Show, “Whatever happened to Virginia is for lovers?”

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