SCOTTSBORO, Ala. (AP) – Two female students at Scottsboro High School attended the prom together hours after a judge’s ruling defeated the school board’s efforts to block the gay teens.

Jackson County Circuit Judge John Graham ruled late Saturday morning that the board could not ban Chelsea Overstreet and Lauren Martin from the junior-senior prom at the town’s civic center that night.

“It’s something they had been planning for a year,” Martin’s mother, Connie Farrington, said at a news conference at their attorney’s office. “Just like every other child, she was ecstatic.”

School officials told the girls they could not attend the prom as a couple the day before spring break two weeks ago, their mothers said.

They had already bought their prom tickets and formal wear for the dance, Farrington said.

“It was a big letdown” for the girls, she said.

Graham’s decision cited two federal court rulings. In one, the U.S. Supreme Court said states and state agencies “cannot set-out homosexuals for special treatment.” The other prohibits public schools “from barring same-sex couples from school functions.”

The Huntsville Times was unable to reach school officials for comment Saturday.

Attorney Parker Edmiston did not make the teens available for comment, though they did pose for photos.

Overstreet, a 17-year-old junior, wore her prom dress while 16-year-old sophomore Martin had on a tuxedo.

“This is just a dance,” Edmiston said. “Adults need not get involved.”

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – Gay and lesbian couples are telling state lawmakers about problems they’ve experienced with the civil unions law.

While the legal designation gives the same-sex couples all the same state rights, benefits and obligations of marriage, there’s a lot of confusion about the status.

Holly Robinson of Danbury says nurses wouldn’t put her name on her son’s birth certificate last year after her partner delivered the infant. She says it took hours to find someone at the state public health department to clear up the matter.

Advocates say some same-sex couples have been denied services or experienced delayed service in hospitals, funeral homes, state agencies and in courts. They say civil unions are misunderstood by the general public, and argue it makes more sense to allow the couples to marry.

RINDGE, N.H. (AP) – Swastikas painted on the walls of a Franklin Pierce University dorm bathroom and hallway and an anti-Semitic message written on a classroom desk have spurred the school to launch an investigation and educate students about tolerance.

University spokesman Brian Stuart says the graffiti swastikas began popping up around campus and at freshman dorms toward the end of the fall. He said another swastika was found on the wall of an on-campus apartment and an anti-Semitic phrase directed at another student was found this week on a desk in an academic building at the university.

Stuart would not identify the victim, who is Jewish, and at least one other student accused of harassing him, but said the two have agreed to participate in mediation.

Meanwhile, the Rindge Police Department is investigating reports of anti-Semitic and anti-homosexual pamphlets that have been distributed to residents’ mailboxes.

CALDWELL, Idaho (AP) – Over the past two years, more than 45 percent of Hispanics newly diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in southwest Idaho were in the later stages of the disease, health officials say.

The survey results were found in Idaho’s Health District 3, which includes Canyon, Owyhee, Adams, Payette, Gem and Washington counties.

The results have prompted Idaho State University-Boise and other groups to provide free HIV/AIDS testing at a meeting planned April 10 at the Family Services Center in Caldwell.

Testing will be available at the meeting, which will be done by swabbing the inside of the mouth. Results will be available about 20 minutes later.

Judy Thorne, HIV education coordinator for Idaho State-Boise, said the finding in southwest Idaho is consistent with national statistics, which show minorities, women and gay men to be most at risk.

A report released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention covering 2006 found that Hispanics accounted for 19 percent of the new AIDS diagnoses and 19 percent of all people living with AIDS in the U.S.

Late last year, Thorne surveyed 129 Hispanic people in Health District 3 to find out attitudes about HIV/AIDS.

She told the Idaho Press-Tribune that the survey found 20 percent of Hispanics in the area said HIV/AIDS was predetermined, contracted because of fate or destiny.

Thorne said 75 percent of those who took the survey said they would want to be tested for HIV/AIDS if the test were available, although 72 percent said they didn’t believe they were at risk of contracting the disease.

More than 1,000 people rallied at the state Capitol April 2 in support of a state legislator who has been widely criticized for antigay remarks caught in a YouTube audio clip.

Republican state Rep. Sally Kern was denounced by gay and lesbian groups after she was recorded telling a recent gathering of fellow Republicans outside the Capitol that homosexuality poses a bigger threat to the nation than terrorism.

Kern was cheered Wednesday when she told the crowd that their support affirmed the rights of conservative Christians “who want to stand up for the truth of God’s word.”

“What has happened to me has served to advance the gospel,” said Kern, who was greeted with chants of “Sally, Sally” and was frequently interrupted by shouts of “Amen.”

Kern said she received thousands of angry telephone calls and e-mails after an audio clip of her comments about gays and lesbians were recorded and posted on YouTube last month by the Washington, D.C.-based Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund.

Kern, who was joined at the rally by Baptist ministers including her husband, the Rev. Steve Kern, has rejected demands that she apologize and said her beliefs are rooted in biblical passages that she said characterizes homosexuality as a sin.

“You cannot separate your faith from life,” she said.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) – Mayor Bill Welch presided over a commitment ceremony for four same-sex couples, even though the state does not legally recognize same-sex marriages or civil unions.

More than 500 people cheered after the ceremony, which looked very much like a wedding, at Penn State University’s Alumni Hall last Saturday. Two groups protested the event, which was organized by a group of Penn State graduate students to start the annual Pride Week for GLBT students.

The couples – Frank Vasquez and Paul Datti, James Collins and Ryan Fitzpatrick, Kat Sinclair and Delia Guzman, and Amanda Applegate and Donna Coffman – exchanged vows and rings, and sealed their pledges with a kiss.

“We were really nervous, all of us, until we came out of Boucke (Building) and everyone cheered,” Guzman said. “From that point, it was like we were walking on air.”

Steve Glassman, the state Human Relations Commission chairman, contributed readings to the ceremony and called the day “historic.”

Orthodox Christian Fellowship, a Penn State student group, protested outside by singing softly and holding plaques depicting Jesus.

The Pennsylvania Family Values Coalition, a conservative Christian group, held a rally elsewhere on campus to show support for traditional marriage.

“We are not here to show hatred, though some people might think that,” the coalition chairman, the Rev. Gary Dull, of Faith Baptist Church in Altoona, told the crowd. “But we are here to teach the truth of the Scripture about the family.”