VENTURA, Calif. (AP) – A Southern California teen has been ordered to stand trial in the fatal shooting of a gay classmate.

Ventura County Superior Court Judge Ken Riley said July 19 that there was enough evidence to try 15-year-old Brandon McInerney for the February 2008 shooting death of Larry King, also 15. McInerney will be tried as an adult.

Riley says he agrees with prosecutors that the shooting was premeditated and has added the special circumstance allegation that McInerney was lying in wait.

Authorities say McInerney shot Larry twice in the head during a computer lab at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard.

McInerney has plead not guilty to murder and a hate crime. He faces 53 years to life in prison if convicted.

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) – The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin has prevailed in its first lawsuit against a deposed bishop who led a secession movement prompted by the church’s ordination of women and gays.

National church leaders removed John-David Schofield as the head of the Fresno-based diocese in March of last year, after he led parishioners to break with the national church.

On July 20, Fresno County Superior Court Judge Adolfo Corona ruled that Schofield improperly set up outside accounts to transfer up to $5 million in church money to a new holding company.

The ruling also established that Jerry Lamb, a bishop loyal to the U.S. Episcopal Church, officially heads the Fresno diocese.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – San Francisco’s city attorney is seeking to join a federal lawsuit challenging California’s same-sex marriage ban.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera on July 21 asked a judge to make San Francisco a party in the case, which was brought by the high-profile lawyers who squared off over the disputed 2000 presidential election.

Herrera says the city is uniquely positioned to provide testimony on some of the issues U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker has said he wants addressed at trial because of its longtime advocacy of gay rights.

Walker has scheduled an Aug. 19 hearing to consider the city’s request and to set a timetable for moving the lawsuit forward.

The gay rights group that initiated the lawsuit did not have a comment on the city’s petition.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) – The interim executive director of a gay community center that serves Silicon Valley says the 28-year-old gathering place will have to close its doors unless he can raise $50,000 by September.

Paul Wysocki sent a newsletter to supporters of the Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center on July 18 warning that dried up government funding and declining corporate support had created a hole in the center’s $310,000 budget. The center provides HIV testing, support services for youth and seniors, and career and recreational programs.

Anne Hansen, president of the center’s board of directors, says leaders hope to raise the money with a 45-day membership drive.

Billy DeFrank was the stage name of a 1970s gay rights activist and drag entertainer from San Jose.

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Dr. Joel Weisman, who co-wrote the first report on AIDS in 1981, has died. He was 66.

Weisman died Saturday at his Los Angeles home, the Los Angeles Times reports. His domestic partner, Bill Hutton, said Weisman had heart disease and was ill for several months.

Weisman was a private physician in 1980 when he saw three gay patients who had symptoms of what would become known as AIDS. Weisman referred two of the patients to an immunologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Weisman, along with UCLA immunologist Dr. Martin Gottlieb, wrote a brief report of what they learned.

Their paper appeared on June 5, 1981, in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was the first report on AIDS in the medical literature.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – Although there were a record number of adoptions in Florida last year, there are still problems.

Gov. Charlie Crist met with a handful of adoptive parents July 19 at the governor’s mansion, where a Wakulla County couple outlined their concerns about the number of children in foster care who are overmedicated.

Mirko and Regina Ceska from Crawfordville praised the governor for his enthusiastic backing of giving more children homes but asked for his help in keeping them safe in the foster care process.

“The foster people that are taking care of these kids, many of them that we have seen don’t want these kids to have too much to do,” Mirko Ceska said. “So they really put them asleep. They really do.”

Regina Ceska, a nurse, said the 12-year-old twin girls they adopted a year ago were on 11 separate medications, some she considered highly unsafe. She said one of the pills prescribed by a psychiatrist for the girls was a psychotropic drug called Seroquel, which is used for the treatment of schizophrenia.

“When we saw them the first time and they were on all those medications,” she said. “Their behavior was absolutely terrible and you could almost not control them.”

The adopted daughters are now off all medications and learning how to behave, she said.

The Ceskas also have two grown sons, both home-schooled and now seniors at Florida State University where they are engineering majors.

Crist’s position opposing gay adoption also drew some criticism.

“Excluding a class of people is harmful to children, particularly those in our state who have had gay foster parents,” said Larry Spalding, spokesperson for the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The governor, who is leaving his office to run for the U.S. Senate, also visited Jacksonville, Fort Myers and Fort Lauderdale to promote adoptions and thank those Florida parents who adopted more than 7,400 children in the last two years.

A longtime bachelor who was married last December, Crist said he had no immediate plans to adopt a child.

“I just have two new stepdaughters,” Crist said. “I’ve got to take this one day at a time.”

CHICAGO (AP) – The Chicago Public Health Department estimates 17 percent of gay men in Chicago are HIV-positive, with half of them unaware they are infected.

Health officials also say black men who have sex with other men have double the HIV infection rates of white and Hispanic men.

Public Health Department assistant commissioner Christopher Brown says it isn’t known why black men are disproportionately affected by HIV. He said the health department is working with social service groups to expand testing and increase contact with the city’s gay and bisexual population.

Health officials said July 21 information in the report on HIV infection marks the first time Chicago health officials have used blood-testing to determine infection rates among men.

According to Brown, past estimates have relied solely on interviews with gay and bisexual men about their HIV status.

BAKER CITY, Ore. (AP) – A gay rights group has demanded an apology from the Huntington Lions Club after claiming it denied a couples discount to a pair of lesbians who entered the club’s annual Catfish Derby.

New York-based Lambda Legal sent a letter dated July 21 to the Lions Clubs International Headquarters in Illinois on behalf of Angela and Tina Corriere-Gooch, who live in Ontario.

Tina Corriere-Gooch told the Baker City Herald the incident was insulting and degrading.

But Mike Raney of Huntington, a Lions Club member and chair of the catfish derby, said his decision to deny the $1 couples discount had nothing to do with sexual orientation.

Raney says he’ll write a letter of apology.