 The ceremony takes its name (and sometimes the color of tassels or other items given to students) from the significance of the color lavender in the LGBTQ community.Jonathan Saenz, President of Texas Values, a Texas-based organization advocating for traditional family values, stated, “This special Texas A&M ceremony essentially promotes and celebrates dangerous and risky sexual activity that can fiercely jeopardize a person’s well-being...I’m not sure this is the most responsible way for a university to prepare students for the real world.” Saenz saw this as a direct violation of the then ban on gay marriage.The A&M Student Senate and one state Legislator unsuccessfully tried to delete funding from the LGBT resource.