COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) – Leaders of Christian groups opposed to same-sex marriage are taking to the broadcast waves to try to organize opposition to same-sex marriages.

A program entitled “Faith, Family and Freedom: The Battle for Marriage,” includes a speech by James Dobson of Focus on the family, Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries and Wellington Boone of Wellington Boone Ministries.

“It’s our response to what’s going on in Massachusetts,” said the Rev. Ted Haggard, president of National Association of Evangelicals and senior pastor of New Life.

The conservative ministers say the precedent set in Massachusetts could result in other states also making same-sex marriages legal despite laws designed to “protect” marriage as a heterosexual union.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said a proposed constitutional amendment is the only way to preserve “traditional” marriages. “It’s turned into a real public policy crisis. I think people are concerned, and rightfully so,” he said.

U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., who introduced the constitutional amendment in the House, said the Massachusetts events should awaken opponents of same-sex marriage and increase support for her amendment.

HONOLULU (AP) – Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District spans 331 miles of the island chain from Hanalei on Kauai to Naalehu on the Big Island, made up primarily of smaller communities built by waves of immigrants who came to work on sugar plantations more than a century ago.

U.S. Rep. Ed Case, a moderate Democrat, has represented his party’s political stronghold for 18 months and is seeking a second two-year term.

Thus far, his principal challenger is freshman Honolulu City Councilmember Mike Gabbard, a Republican who surfaced in the 1990s as a leader in the religious right’s campaign to ban same-sex marriages in the islands.

Gabbard bristles at Case’s suggestion Gabbard is “a one-issue candidate,” meaning same-sex marriage.

“Well, since I have thus far been successful in ruining Ed Case’s dream of legalizing same-sex marriage in Hawaii, it’s only natural Case can only think of that one issue when he thinks of me,” Gabbard emphasized with bold lettering in his email response to a series of questions from The Associated Press.

Case, an attorney who served eight years in the state House representing Honolulu’s Manoa Valley area, is the better known of the two politically.

After losing a close Democratic gubernatorial primary in 2002 to then-Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono, he beat out 37 other candidates in a special election two months later to serve out the remaining five weeks of the two-year term of Rep. Patsy Mink, who died Sept. 28, 2002.

Mink’s posthumous re-election in the Nov. 7 general election set up a second special election Jan. 4, 2003, to fill her 2nd District seat, and Case beat out the 43 other candidates for the full term.

MIDDLEBURG, Pa. (AP) – A man who beat his neighbor nearly to death because of a perceived sexual advance was re-sentenced to between 14 and 40 years in prison.

Todd Clinger, 23, had won an appeal in Superior Court after a judge refused to allow him to withdraw a guilty plea to conspiracy to commit murder. The murder conspiracy charged was dropped and Clinger was sentenced for aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, charges he also pleaded guilty to.

“I personally would not lose a moment’s sleep in sentencing you above the aggravated guideline in the aggravated conspiracy charge, but I don’t believe the law would allow me to do it,” Union-Snyder President Judge Harold F. Woelfel Jr. said.

Clinger and his younger brother, Troy Clinger, were drinking on their porch with neighbor Michael Auker in March 2001 when Todd thought Auker had made a sexual advance. The brothers first talked inside, then came out and severely beat Auker.

Their father, Gary Clinger, was sentenced to five years in prison for failing to help Auker. He told authorities he helped Troy Clinger carry an unconscious Auker back to Auker’s trailer, where they left him. He was found 35 hours later by a co-worker, and continues to suffer from permanent nerve damage.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – The city and the mother of a slain transsexual drag show performer have settled a federal lawsuit that alleged that police and rescue workers contributed to her death.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed in the wrongful death lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in September by Roslyn Wilkins, the mother of Nizah Morris, 47, who was born a man but lived as a woman.

Wilkins’ attorney, Lee Carpenter, said her client was pleased with the May 11 settlement but would not be satisfied until the killer is found.

“We think that the settlement will be constructive in improving the relationship between the city and the transgender community,” Carpenter said. “But we haven’t lost sight of the fact that we don’t know what happened to Nizah and who ended her life.”

Wilkins was hospitalized for knee surgery and unavailable for comment, Carpenter said.

Still pending is a lawsuit against a bar Morris visited shortly before she was found unconscious and bleeding on a downtown street corner on Dec. 22, 2002. Minutes earlier, the suit alleges, she was dropped off by a police officer who picked her up just a few blocks away and “waved off” paramedics responding to a 911 call seeking assistance for an intoxicated Morris.

Police have said that Morris insisted on getting out of the cruiser. She died Christmas Eve 2002 of a skull fracture from a single blow to the head. Her death was ruled a homicide.

Now that the suit is settled against the city police and paramedics, the Police Advisory Commission will begin an investigation into whether police acted properly, said William M. Johnson, the commission’s acting executive director.

Morris, born Robert Morris, changed her name and got breast implants after realizing that she wanted to live as a woman. She was a popular performer at Bob and Barbara’s Lounge, where she lip-synched tunes by singers such as Eartha Kitt and Peggy Lee.

SILVER CITY, N.M. (AP) – Schools around Silver City will be looking at ways to make themselves safer for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students.

Members of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays told the Silver Board of Education that such students face harassment and other problems.

The organization said the Silver School District “currently has a well-documented case of a student being harassed for being, or being perceived to be, gay, and not receiving adequate standard of care by the district.”

The school board voted to establish a task force to study ways to make schools safer for GLBT students. The panel will include district personnel and representatives of PFLAG.

Superintendent Dick Pool said the task force will “open the lines of communication and address these concerns.”

Pool said he has spoken with administrators in the Albuquerque district, which has programs to protect GLBT students. Pool said one program is a “safe zone”, which identifies staff members at each school whom the students “feel comfortable going to and talking to.”

The support group asked the board to modify the district’s harassment and bullying policy to specifically cover “real or perceived orientation or gender identity,” train all teachers and administrators on legal standards for protecting such students, require a district administrator to document harassment and bullying claims and reaffirm the board’s willingness and legal obligation to allow the formation of an on-campus group for GLBT students.

SKANEATELES, N.Y. (AP) – Business leaders in this upscale Finger Lakes community are urging town officials to let gay and lesbian couples obtain family memberships at the local community center.

In a recently approved statement, the Skaneateles Area Chamber of Commerce and the Skaneateles Merchants’ Association said they didn’t want their community branded as backward and bigoted.

“A Community Center is a place for the entire community to gather for programs and recreation, and should include all families,” the statement read.

“It’s the 20th century and values and standards have changed from what they were and we try to be progressive and up to date,” said Joe Panzarella, president of the merchants’ association.

Family membership became an issue when Lisa and Mary Beth Alibrandi, of Niles, a lesbian couple of 22 years who raised children together and were married by a minister, applied for one. The town board decided May 6 that only couples who have a marriage license valid in New York State can have a family membership.

“That’s not the image that the merchants’ association and the chamber want to present for the village and town of Skaneateles,” Panzarella said. “We didn’t want to be tarred with the same brush.”

The chamber, which has 330 members, got about a dozen letters and emails after the town board made its decision, said its executive director, Sue Dove. Most of the writers said they planned to boycott Skaneateles’ businesses. That’s when the chamber decided to issue a statement expressing its opposition to the town board’s position.