SAN FRANCISCO, Ca. (AP) — A San Francisco judge dismissed a grand jury indictment against a former San Francisco health commissioner accused of intentionally infecting sexual partners with the virus that causes AIDS.

The ruling by Superior Court Judge Kay Tsenin marked the first-ever judicial review of a 1998 state law against knowingly and deliberately infecting partners.

Prosecutors alleged that Ronald Gene Hill solicited sex with men on the Internet and falsely told them he wasn’t infected with the human immunodeficiency virus.

At least two men infected with HIV told the grand jury that they had had sex with Hill and that he had repeatedly told them he didn’t have the virus. Prosecutors said that Hill took advantage of his position as a health commissioner to stave off questions about his HIV status.

But Hill’s attorney, Peter Fitzpatrick, argued that there was insufficient evidence to show his client had intended to infect anyone.

Fitzpatrick said that the contacts between Hill and the two alleged victims were “normal relationships” and that even if Hill had lied about his HIV status, such deception did not meet the threshold of proof required by the law that he had deliberately intended to infect others.

In the end, Tsenin said prosecutors did not meet the legal burden in the face of a “very marginal amount” of evidence against Hill.

Hill, a one-time registered nurse, former florist and funeral home director, was appointed to the city Health Commission by Mayor Willie Brown.

DENVER, Colo. (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit against a Colorado Springs high school for refusing to recognize a club that includes gays.

The lawsuit said the school has repeatedly refused to recognize the Palmer High Gay-Straight Alliance. As a result, the group may not meet on school property on the same terms as other groups, cannot post club information at the school and is omitted from the school’s yearbook.

Mark Silverstein, legal director of the Colorado ACLU, said similar clubs are operating at 50 high schools in Colorado, and that federal law requires schools to grant equal access to all student clubs,

Palmer principal Karin Reynolds said it was the school district’s decision not to recognize the group.

Elaine Naleski, the district’s spokeswoman, said she had not seen the lawsuit and could not discuss it. She said a district policy in place since 1995 does not recognize groups that do not have a direct link to curriculum.

Silverstein said the alliance facilitates communication between gay students, straight students, and those who question their own sexual identity.

ATLANTA, Ga. (AP) — A national project began to educate veterans about gays in the military, a decade after Congress passed the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

The Military Education Initiative plans to reach out to veterans groups around the country, providing speakers to chapter meetings and conventions to open the dialogue about the military’s policy on gays.

“As a veteran, I appreciate that the 27 million of my fellow vets are well regarded on Capital Hill,” said former Army Maj. Jeff Cleghorn, director of the Atlanta-based initiative. “Veterans’ opinions on the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy are very important.”

The non-profit initiative, a project of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will begin reaching out to veterans groups in Atlanta, Seattle, San Diego and San Francisco, Cleghorn said.

The initiative is not affiliated with the military.

The “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, in effect since 1994, allows gay men and lesbians to serve as long as they keep their sexual orientation private and do not engage in homosexual acts.

LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — A school board said it won’t apologize for punishing a boy who said his mother is gay, insisting the boy was disciplined for behavioral problems, not for using the word “gay.”

A school form that Marcus McLaurin brought home last month said his use of the word was the reason for his punishment. His mother, Sharon Huff, complained to the American Civil Liberties Union, which demanded an apology and that the incident be removed from Marcus’ record.

The Lafayette Parish School Board voted, 5-3, that it was “never the intent or purpose” to discipline the child for having used the word “gay.”

The school board offered no further explanation.

ACLU lawyer Ken Choe expressed disappointment and said no new evidence had been produced to suggest that the boy had been punished for any reason other than the one given in the form.

“We feel this is revisionist history,” Choe said. He said a lawsuit was an option.

BOSTON, Mass. (AP) — National and state conservative organizations held a two-day strategy meeting in Boston on to chart their response to a recent high court decision that could lead to America’s first gay marriages.

“We’re obviously very concerned about what’s happened with the issue of marriage in Massachusetts and we’re here gauging the temperature,” said Genevieve Wood, vice president for communications at the Family Research Council, a Washington-based conservative organization.

Also in attendance at the meeting were representatives from Focus on the Family, another national organization dedicated to conservative issues, the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, the Massachusetts-based Center for Marriage Law, and the Massachusetts Family Institute, which organized the meeting.

Wood said no decisions had been made about strategy or how much money would be spent to convince the public and lawmakers to take actions against gay marriage.

The House and Senate are scheduled to meet in February to vote on a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

Under the Supreme Judicial Court decision, issued Nov. 18, gay marriage could become legal in mid-May, after the expiration of a 180-day court-ordered waiting period designed to give the Legislature time to act.

Lawmakers are considering legislation that would give gay couples all the benefits of marriage without the title. House Speaker Thomas Finneran (D-Boston) has said it is also possible that the Legislature will take no action.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A former special education student is suing Seward School District officials, alleging she became suicidal because of harassment by other students who thought she was gay.

Jamie Davis, 20, suffers from attention-deficit disorder and mild mental retardation, among other things, according to the lawsuit.

Soon after she began attending Seward High School in 1999, other students began harassing her because of “her boyish clothes and her masculine appearance,” according to the lawsuit.

Using derisive language, the other students repeatedly asked her “whether she was a boy or a girl,” ridiculed her and said “she wasn’t normal and should be in a special school,” according to the lawsuit.

One student reportedly told Davis to kill herself.

She also allegedly was threatened by another student with a handgun during a physical education class.

According to the lawsuit, school officials and teachers said “there was nothing they could do because they hadn’t seen or heard” the remarks or that she was “just imagining” the harassment.

“Under the barrage of sexual name-calling, ridicule and innuendo by the students, plaintiff’s behavior and grades worsened ... as her stress rapidly escalated,” according to the lawsuit, filed Dec. 3 in U.S. District Court by Nebraska Advocacy Services.

School Vice Principal Dana Schaefer ultimately responded by having Davis escorted to a classroom each morning, where she sat until the bell rang. She also required her to sit with a teacher at lunch.

In the fall of 2001, the harassment escalated into physical violence when other students repeatedly shoved her into her metal locker, according to the lawsuit.

Davis refused to return to school in December 2001 and enrolled in the district’s after-hours program to work toward her GED on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

The lawsuit said several student waited each night outside of the school and called her names and threatened to “run her out of town.”

The lawsuit said the harassment impeded her ability to get an education and alleges that schools officials denied her equal protection and due process.

It asks for $250,000 in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages.

School officials referred questions about the lawsuit to their lawyer, Randall Goyette, who declined comment.

NEW YORK, N.Y. (AP) — Two brigadier generals and a rear admiral — all retired — disclosed that they are gay and denounced the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in interviews with The New York Times.

In a recently published story, Army Brig. Gens. Keith Kerr and Virgil Richard and Coast Guard Rear Adm. Alan Steinman said the policy effectively excludes gays from military service and forced them to deceive friends and family.

The men were the highest-ranking military officials to disclose their sexual orientation, the Times said.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a gay rights group that monitors military justice, made the officers available to the newspaper as part of the group’s plans to mark a decade since the policy was put in place by President Clinton on Nov. 30, 1993.

“Because gays and lesbians are required to serve in silence and in celibacy, the policy is almost impossible to follow,” Steinman told the Times. “It has been effectively a ban.”

He said he did not tell his family he was gay until after he retired in 1997. Richard, who retired in 1991, said no one knew he was gay during his 32 years of military service.

“I suppressed my desires, and didn’t allow myself to be who I am because there was too much at stake,” Richard said in his interview with the newspaper.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network said nearly 10,000 men and women have been discharged from the military for being gay under “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The Bush administration and the Pentagon have said there are no plans to abandon the policy.