SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – One reason why the California Supreme Court is taking so long to decide whether same-sex marriage is legal is that the issue has attracted more “friend of the court” briefs than any other case in recent memory, Chief Justice Ronald George said Tuesday.

George said the court has received 45 such briefs from 145 different organizations lobbying the state’s high court to decide the case in a variety of ways.

An array of civil rights groups and several cities have filed court documents in favor of same-sex marriage, while politically conservative and religious organizations filed papers supporting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s position opposing it. Attorney General Jerry Brown also has filed opposition papers.

“We have a lot of material before us,” George said. “There is a vast amount of literature to read.”

The Supreme Court took up the matter in December 2006. All the required written legal arguments were filed by Nov. 15, George said.

The chief justice said the court expects to hear the case in 2008. The issue is not on the court’s January calendar.

The court is required to rule 90 days after oral arguments.

The issue dates back to Valentine’s Day in 2004 when San Francisco began marrying same-sex couples. In March, the California Supreme Court ordered the city to stop the marriages while the courts considered six related lawsuits challenging whether the state’s one-man, one-marriage laws are constitutional.

In October 2006, a divided appellate court upheld California’s marriage laws, ruling that they did not discriminate against gays because they get the same rights by registering as domestic partners.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – It doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight, you can’t get legally married at Lyndale United Church of Christ.

The small, liberal church in south Minneapolis was the first of several Twin Cities congregations last year to stop performing civil marriage ceremonies as long as same-sex marriage is illegal. These churches, and a handful of others around the country that took the same step, will still hold a religious ceremony to bless the unions of straight and same-sex couples – but straight couples must go separately to a judge or justice of the peace for the marriage license.

“If you feel that gay and lesbian people are loved and credited by God, then how can we continue to discriminate against our brothers and sisters?” asked Rev. Don Portwood, the reserved Nebraska native who’s been lead pastor at the 120-member Lyndale United Church of Christ for 27 years.

The churches in question minister to only a handful of the most liberal churchgoers in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and most have a large contingent of gay members in the congregation.

“Go 20 miles out of the city and it will be a different story,” said the Rev. David Runnion-Bareford, executive director of Biblical Witness Fellowship, a New Hampshire-based conservative movement within the United Church of Christ.

But the pastors leading these congregations don’t expect other churches, particularly those from more conservative denominations, to follow suit. Rather, it’s a new strategy for achieving legal same-sex marriage, with supporters hoping to push toward a society that views civil and religious marriage as separate institutions.

“There’s a real shift going on here, where I think more and more people are recognizing the distinction, that what the state offers and the church offers are two different things,” said the Rev. Mark Wade, pastor of the 540-member Unitarian Universalist Church in Asheville, N.C.

Last year, Wade stopped signing marriage licenses, and he now speaks of it as a stand for the separation of church and state. “We tell couples to go to the magistrate,” Wade said. “I felt I couldn’t serve an unjust law. That didn’t make any sense to me.”

It’s difficult to know how many congregations nationwide have taken such a step. Wade said he knows of about a dozen fellow Unitarian ministers who won’t sign marriage licenses. There are at least five congregations in the Twin Cities that either no longer perform civil marriages or are phasing them out – three from the United Church of Christ, one Unitarian and one Lutheran.

Portwood said he knows of at least several other UCC congregations around the country that have made the change. Several messages left with UCC headquarters in Cleveland were not returned.

The UCC, which counts presidential candidate Barack Obama among its members, is one of the oldest denominations in the United States, with roots going back to the Pilgrims. In 2005, the church’s General Synod voted to support same-sex marriage as a civil right, the first mainline Christian denomination to do so.

That started the discussion at several of the UCC congregations in the Twin Cities that led to the current policies. “I don’t know that they thought we’d go quite this far,” said the Rev. Sarah Campbell, lead pastor at the 650-member Mayflower Congregational Church in Minneapolis, which followed the Lyndale church’s lead a few weeks later.

Both Campbell and Portwood said the change was an easy sell with their congregations. Both churches put it to a vote of their congregations. At Lyndale, there were no dissenting votes, while at Mayflower there were only two.

Portwood said Lyndale never held many weddings, and that hasn’t changed since the new rule. Mayflower, with a larger congregation, has traditionally held more weddings and hasn’t seen a spike or decline since the change, Campbell said. In Asheville, which Ward said is something of a “wedding tourist destination,” the Unitarian Universalist Church saw an initial drop-off in wedding ceremonies but has since returned to normal levels, he said.

Vickie Wunsch and Susie George, partners for the last 12 years, had a religious wedding ceremony at Mayflower a few weeks ago. “It was what I would consider a pretty traditional wedding,” Wunsch said. The two have a marriage license from Canada, but hope to someday get one from the state of Minnesota, she said.

“I think both the civil and the conventional aspects of marriage are important, but they both have their place,” Campbell said. “It’s just gotten mixed up where they’re not clearly separated. I would say it’s only a matter of time before we move to what they’ve done in Canada, South Africa, Europe – separating out those two aspects.”

Runnion-Bareford, whose group led the opposition to UCC’s declaration on same-sex marriage in 2005, said that might not be as difficult to achieve as some might imagine. If same-sex marriage becomes legal in states other than Massachusetts, Runnion-Bareford predicted, then churches such as Lyndale and Mayflower could find unlikely allies.

“I know there are clusters of conservative pastors in Massachusetts who have discussed refusing civil ceremonies so as not to be under pressure to perform same-gender ceremonies,” said Runnion-Bareford, who himself believes that government and the church have a joint interest in promoting traditional marriage as a societal good.

“The question they are putting forward is, what is that connection going to be?” he said. “Will clergy continue to be civil agents? What will be the changing picture of the relationship between religion and marriage?”

WASHINGTON (AP) – The lack of a comprehensive HIV-AIDS education program in District of Columbia public schools is putting students at risk, according to a report released Wednesday.

The report card by the DC Appleseed Center for Law and Justice gives the school system a D, citing delays in approving system-wide health standards that would help prevent infection. It is the biggest negative in a report that also highlights progress in the effort to combat the AIDS epidemic.

“In the midst of this crisis, students should be getting information in school that will help prevent infection for the rest of their lives,” the report states. Instead, “fewer and fewer students” have received instruction about the virus in recent years.

In a statement, Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee acknowledged the system’s failure. “Going forward,” she said, it is “committed to implementing comprehensive health curriculum that includes instruction on HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases.” The school board is scheduled to vote Thursday on overall standards that would be an initial step toward her goal.

Youth advocates say the lack of education has perpetuated myths about HIV, including that it is a gay disease that won’t threaten teens.

While critical of the schools, the Appleseed report praises other efforts, awarding the district an A for progress in tracking how many residents have been diagnosed with the virus. A city report two weeks ago showed nearly 12,500 people were known to be infected in 2006. Appleseed says the data provide “the first good look” at the challenge facing the city.

Another top score was awarded for the Department of Corrections, which is testing about 75 percent of inmates at the D.C. jail for HIV-AIDS upon arrival. Starting in January, inmates who are HIV-positive will be given a 28-day supply of medications on discharge so their treatment is not interrupted. The two initiatives are “at the forefront of the nation,” Appleseed’s report said.

Other noted improvements include the expansion of condom giveaways and HIV screening in hospitals and clinics.

D.C. health officials have said Washington has the highest AIDS rate among major cities across the country.