BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – An appeals court decided Oct. 13 that the Louisiana Supreme Court should be the next stop for the state’s disputed ban on same-sex marriage, prolonging uncertainty over whether the ban will hold.

The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals here ruled that the state’s highest court has purview over the ban, since it involves a constitutional amendment.

State District Judge William Morvant ruled that the Legislature’s approval of the amendment was constitutionally flawed and the statewide vote on it should be set aside.

Voters approved the constitutional amendment 78 percent to 22 percent in the Sept. 18 referendum, but Morvant said the measure contained two purposes, a violation of the state constitution.

Besides banning same-sex marriages, Morvant said the amendment prevents the state from recognizing any legal status for common-law relationships, domestic partnerships and civil unions between same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – The same-sex partners of New York state government workers married in Canada qualify for the same public pension benefits as the partners of married heterosexual employees, state Comptroller Alan Hevesi has determined.

Hevesi said a 1980 ruling by the state’s highest court, coupled with an advisory opinion issued in March 2004 by state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, dictates that validly performed marriages of same-sex couples in Canada must be recognized as valid for retirement benefit purposes in New York.

Hevesi is sole trustee of the New York State and Local Retirement System, which covers nearly 1 million current and former government employees in the state.

The Empire State Pride Agenda said the retirement system is the first government entity in New York State to recognize same-sex marriages as legally identical to marriages between heterosexuals.

“It also happens to be the pro-family thing to do,” said Alan Van Capelle, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda. “It ensures that all families in New York have what they need to take care of themselves, particularly in times of crisis like the death of the main provider for the family.”

Hevesi’s ruling, dated Oct. 8, came after an inquiry by Mark Daigneault about whether the pension system would extend benefits to same-sex partners. Daigneault is an Albany-area state employee who said he has been with his partner for 13 years and has two children.

“I think it’s a wonderful thing,” Daigneault said. “I am very excited. It certainly is going to provide more protection for my family and my two children.”

Daigneault said he has not yet gone to Canada to be married. Courts in six Canadian provinces, including Quebec and Ontario, have ruled that denying marriage to same-sex couples violates their rights under the Canadian constitution.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) – Gay and lesbian students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill gathered on campus recently for a kiss-in to draw attention to what they say is a double standard in society.

For 15 minutes, couples, and sometimes threesomes, kissed in a public display of affection they say they are entitled to.

The Flaunt Your Sexuality Kiss-in, organized by the UNC Committee for a Queerer Carolina, drew about 30 students.

“A lot of the time, there is blatant homophobia on this campus. I don’t think these kinds of barriers should stand,” said organizer Win Chesson. “We still have work to do to have people recognize the double standard. We are all about creating a affirming environment.”

John Jackson, a 19-year-old sophomore, said the group wanted to confront misperceptions.

“We wanted it to be known that not everyone is straight, that we have the right to public displays of affection and that they are no more threatening than heterosexual ones,” he said.

Zarah Ersoff, 25, a graduate student, watched the kiss-in and said it was a good way to draw attention to the discomfort she sometimes feels when out in public with her girlfriend.

She said there are not a lot of places around campus where the couple can hold hands or kiss without being stared at.

The kiss-in, Ersoff said, “is ridiculous and over the top, but it is in the spirit of fun. The idea is to unsettle things, to raise people’s eyebrows and challenge their preconceptions.”

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) – An evangelical student group sued Penn State University and university president Graham B. Spanier, claiming the school’s policies could force the group to accept non-Christian or gay students into leadership positions.

A lawsuit on behalf of DiscipleMakers was recorded in the U.S. District Court in Harrisburg Oct. 12, said Tim Tracey, an attorney for the Center for Law and Religious Freedom, which is representing DiscipleMakers.

DiscipleMakers has 40 to 60 student members and has been meeting since the beginning of the fall semester, Tracey said. He said university policy requires that all student groups agree to abide by the school’s nondiscrimination policy, which includes religion and sexual orientation.

Although Tracey said all students are welcome to join and participate in DiscipleMakers, the group believes its leaders should adhere to the group’s religious beliefs.

“They really want their officers and leaders to be people who agree with their statement of faith and who can support the organization’s cause. They feel like, ‘Well we really do discriminate on the basis of religious creed because we require our officers to agree to a specific creed,’” Tracey said. “Included in that, they believe that the Bible prohibits sexual conduct between persons of the same sex, so they feel like they have to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation as well.”

The university emailed a statement to students disputing DiscipleMakers’ claims, saying: “Penn State has not intervened in the officer selection process for any student group in the past, and has no intention to do so.”

NEW HOPE, Pa. (AP) – A judge has indicated that he likely will rule against a dozen state lawmakers who tried to strengthen the state’s ban on same-sex marriages by suing two gay men who want to marry.

Bucks County Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg said at a hearing that he had “serious doubts as to whether plaintiffs’ action will survive.” Goldberg said that his instinct was to issue a ruling from the bench, but that he would instead release his decision shortly.

Robert Seneca, 49, and Stephen Stahl, 55, of New Hope, tried to apply for a marriage license in March at the Bucks County Courthouse, but Register of Wills Barbara G. Reilly said she couldn’t legally accept an application for a same-sex union. Seneca and Stahl later said they would consider filing a lawsuit appealing her decision.

The 11 Republicans and one Democrat who sponsored the state’s 1996 Defense of Marriage Act said they filed their suit in an attempt to have the law affirmed before Seneca and Stahl seek to have it declared unconstitutional.

The state’s marriage laws were threatened because Seneca and Stahl sought a marriage license application and because they had said in newspaper interviews that they would challenge the laws, argued attorney Glen Lavy of the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based agency fighting same-sex unions.

Goldberg said that published comments do not necessarily indicate intentions, and he asked Lavy why the lawmakers were “in such a rush” to sue when the men had not yet challenged the law.

Lavy said that 50 lawsuits have been filed nationwide challenging marriage laws. “If it weren’t for the repeated pattern, we would have waited for a lawsuit when it was filed,” he said.

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) – A North Texas high school student faces reconstructive surgery after he was severely beaten at a party by attackers who believed he was gay, law officers say.

The 17-year-old’s injuries in Cleburne earlier this month are under investigation as a hate crime because the three attackers made derogatory gay slurs, police Sgt. Amy Knoll said.

Three teenagers were arrested in the Oct. 3 attack, which left the Cleburne High School senior with broken bones in his face.

“We have found no other reason whatsoever for the attack other than their belief that he was a homosexual,” Knoll told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The unidentified victim told investigators that as he arrived at an apartment for the party, one of three men standing outside asked him about his sexual orientation. According to Knoll, the victim ignored them and told friends accompanying him that they should leave.

“As he was talking to them, the three suspects came up behind him and began hitting and kicking him in the face,” said Knoll. “They continued to use slurs and such things during the assault.”

She said several young women tried to stop the attack that started around midnight, but the victim was later able to escape.

The next morning, the victim went to the police department after his mother took him to the hospital to have his injuries examined, said Knoll.

Police told the newspaper that they arrested 18-year-old Christopher Lathers, 17-year-old Cory Gibson and Billy Calahan, 19, on charges of aggravated assault with bodily injury, a second-degree felony.

Gibson and Calahan remained jailed, while Lathers was released on $25,000 bail on Oct. 8.