SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A federal judge in San Francisco has refused to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to overturn California’s same-sex marriage ban.

U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker also signaled Wednesday that the measure’s sponsors will need to show that allowing gay couples to wed threatens traditional male-female unions.

Walker said significant questions remain about whether the voter-approved ban discriminates against gays and lesbians in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Before ruling, Walker grilled a lawyer for the measure’s backers who asserted that Proposition 8 was legitimate because it fostered “naturally procreative relationships.’’

The judge demanded to hear how that goal would be undermined if same-sex marriages were legal.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – The first openly gay Episcopal bishop is visiting Maine to add his voice to the gay marriage debate.

Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire will speak Thursday evening on “Why religion matters in the marriage equality debate’’ at the Cathedral of St. Luke in Portland. The bishop will take questions afterward.

His election six years ago caused a rift in the global Anglican Communion, intensifying a long-running debate over what Anglicans should believe about salvation, sexuality and other issues.

The event is sponsored by the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry in Maine, a group comprised of more than 200 clergy from 18 denominations and groups.

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) – Supporters of Maine’s same-sex marriage law picked up editorial support from two of Maine’s largest newspapers this weekend.

The Maine Sunday Telegram and weekend edition of the Bangor Daily News both urged voters to reject Question 1, which calls for repeal of the gay marriage law that was enacted last May.

The Telegram says limiting marriage to a man and a woman “would not make families led by same-sex couples go away,” but just keep them in a legally inferior position.

The News says in Saturday’s editorial that extending the right of marriage to a small segment of the population that has been excluded furthers Maine’s interest in promoting stable families and communities.

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) – Supporters of Maine’s same-sex marriage law say they’ve collected $2.7 million for their campaign to defeat Question 1 on the Nov. 3 ballot, surpassing the total raised by repeal proponents by $1.6 million.

The opposing political action committees released their figures Oct. 13, the deadline for filing their latest quarterly reports with state campaign regulators. The campaigns are trying to persuade voters through TV ads and other media in advance of the Nov. 3 people’s veto referendum. Maine’s gay marriage law was passed by lawmakers last spring.

NO on 1/Protect Maine Equality says it raised $2.7 million and spent $2.2 million to preserve the law that recognizes same-sex marriages.

Stand for Marriage Maine says it raised $1.1 million and spent more than $941,000.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – A man who pleaded guilty to tying, gagging and strangling a Minneapolis man in his home 13 years ago has been sentenced to more than 35 years in prison.

Forty-six-year-old Rommal Bennett was sentenced Friday in the death of Wally Lundin after Lundin was found dead in his home on the northeast side of the city in 1996. Police say Bennett met Lundin at the Gay 90’s club.

A man who said he dated Bennett in 1998 told authorities Bennett confessed to him that he had gone back to Lundin’s home and strangled him.

In 2007, investigators linked DNA found in a condom at the crime scene with Bennett in a convicted offenders database.

Bennett is currently in a New York prison, serving time for a murder conviction.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – A teenage lesbian whose senior picture has been banned from her high school year book because she posed in a tuxedo says she’s gratified by the support she’s received.

In an interview with The Clarion-Ledger, 17-year-old Ceara Sturgis said people from all over the country “have told me I’m this hero. They are my heroes.”

Copiah County School District Superintendent Rick Cloption said federal court decisions uphold the district’s decision not to publish the photograph.

Sturgis is a student at Wesson Attendance Center. She is a National Honors Society student and is active in school athletics and a number of other extracurricular activities.

The American Civil Liberties Union has taken up her case.

NEW YORK (AP) – A second suspect has been arrested in the apparent hate assault that left a 49-year-old New York City gay man in a medically induced coma.

Police say 21-year-old Daniel Rodriguez was taken into custody in Norfolk, Va. Tuesday night. Charges are pending and NYPD detectives are in the process of returning him to New York.

Earlier Tuesday, 26-year-old Daniel Aleman was arraigned on a charge of assault as a hate crimes. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. A telephone call to his attorney was not immediately returned.

Investigators say the two Queens men taunted Jack Price and yelled anti-gay slurs before punching and kicking him last Thursday after he left a 24-hour deli near his home in Queens.

Price suffered a fractured jaw and ribs, the collapse of both of his lungs, and a lacerated spleen.

WASHINGTON (AP) – A 19-year-old man has been sentenced to nearly six months in jail the beating death of a man outside a Washington gay club.

Robert Hannah pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault for punching Tony Hunter, who fell backward after he was struck and hit his head. Hunter died after 10 days in a coma.

The lack of more severe charges in the case has outraged activists in Washington’s gay community. Prosecutors have said they had problems with witnesses and that Hunter was drunk when he was punched, which may have made it harder for him to keep his balance.

Hannah claims Hunter inappropriately touched him before he punched Hunter on Sept. 7, 2008.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Rafael Diaz sentenced Hannah on Wednesday to 180 days in jail, the maximum possible sentence.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Sen. Mark Udall said Friday he wants U.S. military chiefs to tell Congress in the next 30 days how they would handle a repeal of the nation’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law that bars gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military.

The Colorado Democrat released a letter to President Barack Obama applauding Obama’s recent restatement of his intention to end “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Udall said he wants to champion that effort in the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he is a member.

“We need all qualified men and women, many with

mission-critical skills, to fight and win America’s wars. And the

public is ready for this and is with us,” Udall wrote.

The letter asks Obama to direct Defense Secretary Robert Gates and U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen to say when they think the repeal should happen and how a nondiscrimination policy should be implemented.

The letter notes Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the Armed Services committee chairman, has said it’s necessary that senior military leaders be consulted and Congress have their buy-in on a plan to repeal the law.

Obama received a standing ovation from a crowd of about 3,000 at the annual dinner in Washington of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay civil rights advocacy group, when he said: “I will end ‘don’t ask-don’t tell.””

However, Obama offered no timetable or specifics and he acknowledged some may be growing impatient.