JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – State senators are considering a bill to make hatred, bias and prejudice an aggravating factor in crimes committed in Alaska.

Anchorage Sen. Bettye Davis, a Democrat, is the sponsor.

The hate crimes bill follows a failed attempt in Anchorage last year to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. College students with the Gay-Straight Alliance have also unsuccessfully sought a similar policy update of the University of Alaska’s nondiscrimination policies.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A federal magistrate is ordering several gay rights groups that campaigned against California’s 2008 same-sex marriage ban to furnish some internal memos and e-mails to lawyers for the measure’s sponsors.

U.S. Magistrate Joseph Spero issued the order March 5 as part of the first federal trial to examine if the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from outlawing gay marriages.

Spero says Equality California, Californians Against Eliminating Basic Rights, an ACLU campaign committee and an umbrella group that oversaw the campaign against the ban must hand over all documents “that contain, refer or relate to arguments for or against Proposition 8,” with the exception private communications between their core leaders.

Lawyers for the ballot initiative’s backers were required to provide similar documents to lawyers representing two same-sex couples who are suing to overturn Proposition 8.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Authorities say three cousins face hate crime charges for an alleged drive-by shooting of a man with a BB gun outside a San Francisco bar because they thought he was gay.

Assistant District Attorney Brian Buckelew says cousins Mohammad Habibzada, Shafiq Hashemi and Sayed Bassam, all of Hayward, face charges for the Feb. 26 incident.

The men are accused of shooting man in the cheek as he was smoking outside a bar in San Francisco’s Mission district. The charges include assault with a deadly weapon with a hate crime enhancement, discharge of a firearm with gross negligence, and attempted mayhem.

Buckelew says authorities have a video of the incident that the cousins recorded.

The men are scheduled for to be arraigned in court on Friday.

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) – A Catholic school in Colorado is kicking out a preschooler because the child’s parents are lesbians.

The child also will not be allowed to re-enroll next year at Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic School. The Denver Archdiocese posted a statement March 5 saying the parents are “living in open discord with Catholic teaching.”

The statement says students in Catholic schools are expected to have parents who abide by church and school policies. The archdiocese said students with gay parents in Catholic schools would become confused.

“To allow children in these circumstances to continue in our school would be a cause of confusion for the student in that what they are being taught in school conflicts with what they experience in the home,” the statement read.

A spokeswoman for the archdiocese, Jeanette DeMelo, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that the school does allow non-Catholic parents. But she added, “If any of these families were in open discord with the church or school, they would not be enrolled.”

DeMelo said the gay parents in this case became known “through the normal admissions process.” But she did not explain why the child was enrolled in the first place if the parents’ orientation was known.

DeMelo did not say whether any other students at the school have been booted because their parents don’t abide by Catholic policy. The school has 321 students, 42 of them in preschool.

The school’s decision was first reported Friday by KUSA-TV in Denver.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – Movie and TV productions with gay characters could be ineligible for a tax credit being considered in the state House.

Current state law grants tax credits on productions considered “family friendly” – with no smoking, sex, nudity or profane language.

The proposal by Republican Rep. Stephen Precourt of Orlando would increase the credit and expand the field of disqualified productions as those that include any “exhibit or implied act” of nontraditional family values and gratuitous violence.

Precourt says he’s not targeting the gay community but that shows with gay characters would not be something he’d want “to invest public dollars in.”

Florida Together director Ted Howard says “instituting 1950s-style movie censorship does nothing to support real-life families.”

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) – A student group at Missouri Southern State University says it will hold rallies every week until the school add protections for homosexuals to its nondiscrimination policy.

The university’s Equality Alliance held a rally March 4 in front of the central administration building to push for the change.

The Joplin Globe reports that Ruth Eichinger, president of the Equality Alliance, says the group wants university president Bruce Speck and the Board of Curators to say they will address the issue.

The university’s faculty senate earlier this week approved a proposal that would protect gays and lesbians from discrimination in the school’s hiring policies. But the proposal did not include the school’s overall nondiscrimination policy.

NEW YORK – Some New York lawmakers are calling for an end to a federal ban on blood donations by gay men.

U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner said Saturday that overturning the prohibition could save lives at times when the city’s blood supplies run low.

The Food and Drug Administration prohibits men who have sex with men from donating blood, regardless of their HIV status. The ban was put in place in 1983. Weiner says it was implemented amid ignorance of how the virus is transmitted.

The Democrat says the policy doesn’t make blood any safer.

On Thursday a group of 18 U.S. senators called for changes in the law, including New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand.

NEW YORK (AP) – Robert Carter, a Jesuit priest who helped found what today is the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, has died. He was 82.

Gay activist Brendan Fay said Carter died Feb. 22. The cause was not immediately known.

In the early 1970s, Carter also founded the New York City chapter of Dignity with the Rev. John McNeill. The group was formed to help gay men and women integrate their spirituality with their sexuality.

Today, Dignity has 22 chapters across the country.

The National Gay Task Force, which became the NGLTF, was formed in 1973.

McNeill said after Carter came out he celebrated Mass in apartments for gay Catholic New Yorkers throughout the 1970s.

A memorial service is planned for March 22.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Virginia’s attorney general is advising the state’s public colleges to rescind policies that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Kenneth Cuccinelli says in a letter to college presidents and other officials that only the General Assembly can determine which classes of people are protected by state government nondiscrimination policies.

Proposals to ban such discrimination against gays have repeatedly failed in the legislature. The Republican attorney general says in the letter, dated March 4, that state institutions cannot adopt a policy position rejected by the General Assembly.

Virginia’s Democratic Party chairman says colleges can set their own policies. Gay-rights activists say Cuccinelli’s move could cost Virginia top students and faculty.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) – Washington, D.C. will give away 500,000 free female condoms in an attempt to reduce the transmission of HIV/AIDS.

The condoms are expected be available in beauty salons, convenience stores and high schools in parts of the city with high HIV rates. Officials say the distribution could begin within the next three weeks.

At least 3 percent of residents in the nation’s capital are living with HIV or AIDS.

The city has distributed male condoms citywide for nearly a decade, but officials say they want to give women a way to protect themselves from HIV and sexually transmitted diseases when their partners refuse to use protection.

The project is funded through a $500,000 grant from the MAC AIDS Fund, a subsidiary of MAC Cosmetics.