SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Three Hayward men have been sentenced to six months in jail after pleading guilty to shooting a San Francisco man with a BB gun because they thought he was gay.

Assistant District Attorney Brian Buckelew says a judge on Thursday also sentenced Mohammad Habibzada, Shafiq Hashemi and Sayed Bassam to three years probation and up to 400 hours of community service. They’ll also have to undergo hate crime sensitivity training.

The three men, all cousins, were arrested Feb. 26 after a 27-year-old man was shot in the cheek as he was smoking outside a bar in San Francisco’s Mission district.

Police later recovered a video recording showing the victim being shot as the three men drove by.

The three pleaded guilty last month to negligent discharge of a BB gun with a hate-crime enhancement.

LOS ANGELES (AP) – A gay-rights group is demanding an apology from Newsweek magazine for a recent story that it says suggested gay actors shouldn’t play straight characters.

Spokesperson Rich Ferraro says the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation hasn’t gotten the apology it seeks, but that GLAAD’s president and the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Milk” participated in a Q&A with the magazine on Wednesday.

Some Hollywood stars blasted Newsweek and writer Ramin Setoodeh for an April 26 story that said it’s OK for straight actors to play gay roles, but “it’s rare for someone to pull off the trick in reverse.”

Ryan Murphy, creator of the Fox series “Glee,” called for a boycott of the magazine, and actress Kristen Chenoweth wrote a letter to the editor calling its story bigoted and factually inaccurate.

Newsweek did not immediately respond to a call and e-mail seeking comment.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Two lesbians who were married in Des Moines last year are suing two Iowa Department of Public Health officials because the department refused to name both women on their daughter’s birth certificate.

Thirty-eight-year-old Heather Lynn Martin Gartner and 39-year-old Melissa McCoy Gartner filed the Polk County lawsuit on behalf of their second child, Mackenzie, who was born in September.

The birth certificate lists only Heather, who is the biological mother, and the women say it incorrectly lists Mackenzie as having been born out of wedlock.

The lawsuit says the department rejected the couple’s request because Melissa had not legally adopted Mackenzie and was not biologically related.

The legal challenge was filed little more than a year after the Iowa Supreme Court overturned a state law that defined marriage as the union between man and woman.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) – The Kansas attorney general plans to seek support for a brief he will file with the U.S. Supreme Court in a support of a man suing members of an anti-gay Topeka church.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that Attorney General Steve Six plans to complete the friend-of-the-court brief early this week on behalf of Albert Snyder. Six then will circulate it to other state attorneys general.

Snyder is the father of a Marine suing the Westboro Baptist Church members who picketed at his son’s 2006 funeral. The church contends U.S. military deaths are God’s punishment for tolerance of homosexuality.

A federal jury awarded Snyder a $10.9-million judgment in October 2007. That sum was reduced before a federal appeals court overturned the judgment.

Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case.

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) – A Kennebec County Superior Court judge has heard arguments in a campaign financing case lingering from last fall’s referendum in which Maine voters repealed the state’s same-sex marriage law.

The Kennebec Journal in Augusta says Justice Donald Marden, who heard arguments in the case Thursday, has yet to set a timetable for his ruling.

At issue is whether the National Organization for Marriage, which contributed $1.9 million to the campaign to repeal the same-sex marriage law, should have filed as a ballot question committee.

A decision could determine whether the names of donors to NOM must be made public.

Marden said he has concerns about privacy protections for people who want to participate in the political process.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – A man accused of decapitating a gay teenager and burning his body pleaded guilty to first-degree murder on Wednesday and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

The case had gained national attention because activists demanded that U.S. authorities prosecute it as a hate crime, with supporters holding vigils in a dozen cities including New York and Los Angeles.

Police said Juan Martinez Matos, 26, told them he hated homosexuals but that he had offered the victim cocaine in exchange for sex.

The body of 19-year-old college student Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado was found in November along a rural road in the southeastern mountain town of Cayey. Lopez was well known as a volunteer for organizations advocating HIV prevention and gay rights.

“Nothing is going to bring Jorge Steven back, but today, a bit of justice was done,” said Pedro Julio Serrano, a spokesperson for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Martinez’s attorney, Celimar Gracia, told Primera Hora newspaper that prosecutors dropped several weapon-violation charges in exchange for the plea.

“He felt this was the best way to end this case,” Gracia was quoted as saying.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – A Democratic Utah lawmaker is resigning to become the executive director of a gay-rights group in South Carolina.

Rep. Christine Johnson said Wednesday she will begin her new job at South Carolina Equality in July. Johnson lived in the state previously and still has family there.

The two-term Salt Lake City Democrat frequently has fought for the legal rights of gays and lesbians during her time in the Legislature. Johnson, who is a lesbian, is carrying a baby boy for two gay friends who can’t legally adopt in the state.

Johnson agreed to a moratorium on seeking any gay-rights legislation last session to protect a Salt Lake City anti-discrimination ordinance from coming under assault by conservative state lawmakers.

Johnson already had said she would not run for re-election.