PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) – Concerns about election results and a court ruling voiding same-sex marriages loomed large over a Pride parade attended by more than 1,000 people.

Music thumped as the procession of couples and rainbow flags moved along the city’s main thoroughfare. But many said they were distressed by a California Supreme Court judgment that dissolved nearly 4,000 same-sex unions granted in San Francisco earlier this year.

“We’ve been voided,” said Steve Saklad, carrying a poster board of a nullified marriage certificate he and his partner were issued. “But we said the vows to each other as our promise.”

Patti Clarkson, who wed Kathy Eiler, was agitated by the re-election of President Bush, who is pushing for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages.

“Whenever the oppressed rise up, the oppressors fight back,” Clarkson said. It’s time to rise [like a] phoenix.”

In the Nov. 2 elections, 11 states passed measures outlawing same-sex marriage.

David Schneider said he was worried about animosity against the gay community.

“There’s no need for the hate and prejudice,” he said. “That’s why I march.”

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (AP) – Students apologized for a university art project after classmates said it appeared to liken same-sex marriage to bestiality.

The display at California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, features wooden cutout figures that form a wedding party. A minister faces a bride and groom standing below an arch with the words “What is marriage anyway”.

Behind the couple are two men in tuxedos, followed by a tuxedoed man flanked by two women in wedding gowns. Finally, there is another man in a tuxedo standing next to a Dalmatian.

Other messages read: “Legalization of gay marriage leads to social disintegration”, “Where would u draw the line?” and “It’s a slippery slope”.

Five students in professor Beth Diamond’s landscape architecture class created the project.

By the afternoon of the second day it was displayed, the five students who created the piece were apologizing to about 30 classmates and about two-dozen others who accepted Diamond’s invitation to discuss their reactions. The professor said she’d received numerous angry telephone calls and email messages.

University vice president for student affairs Cornel Morton said the display does not violate the university’s free expression policy, but he noted GLBT students have been harassed in the past and emotions are high.

“This display, unfortunately, re-ignites those types of concerns,” Morton said.

“The work was good. [But] it was offensive. It was disgusting,” psychology student Conrad Mendoza, who is gay, said at one point during the 90-minute discussion. More than a dozen others echoed that reaction.

DENVER (AP) – Businesses and organizations that cater to the GLBT community have been the targets of at least 10 instances of vandalism this year, owners and leaders reported.

Vandals have used pellet guns to shoot out the windows of the Rocky Mountain Pink Pages six times, leading two employees to quit the GLBT business directory, general manager Ronnie Suba said.

One, “just packed her stuff, looked at the window, looked at me and said, ‘I can’t take this anymore,’” Suba said.

The Center, a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community center, hired a security guard after vandals broke their windows four times. Property management has since replaced the broken windows with plywood.

“Short of stationing somebody in the building across the street, there is really no way to deal with it,” said Art Thompson, executive director of the Center.

The Colorado Anti-Violence Program reported an increase in incidents of bias-motivated violence, including vandalism, hate mail, physical assault and verbal abuse, said Avy Skolnik, the program’s direct services coordinator.

There are also a lot more that go unreported, Skolnik said.

“We are only seeing a small snapshot of the reality out there,” he said.

Denver police does not track crimes against GLBT-owned businesses and could not say whether those crimes are on the rise.

Compounding the problem, some businesses do not report vandalism, and “if we don’t know about it, we can’t do anything about it,” Denver police spokesperson Virginia Lopez said.

At least three other businesses that cater to the GLBT community report being the target of anti-gay graffiti on windows.

BOZEMAN (AP) – Montana State University is reviewing its policy allowing same-sex couples married in other states to rent family housing in light of voter approval of a statewide ban on same-sex marriage.

Leslie Taylor, MSU’s legal counsel, said she needed to analyze the impact of Constitutional Initiative 96 and how it could affect school policy.

MSU has always required students applying for family or graduate housing to show proof of a legal relationship, such as a marriage license or guardianship of a child, Taylor said.

An unmarried heterosexual couple living together, for example, would not qualify, she said.

Taylor had thought same-sex marriages or civil unions from other states like Vermont or Massachusetts would qualify as legal dependency, but now that might not be the case.

The school was not aware of any same-sex couples currently applying for MSU on-campus housing, spokesperson Cathy Conover said.

Conover hoped there would not be any political fallout for the school.

Montana was one of 11 states that passed initiatives banning same-sex marriage in the Nov. 2 elections.

Montana law already defined marriage as a heterosexual union.

Several challenges have arisen to initiatives passed in other states. None have been reported in Montana, although a pending state Supreme Court case against the Montana university system seeks health insurance coverage for the same-sex partners of university system employees, arguing that denying insurance violates the state constitution.

NEW YORK (AP) – Responding to complaints from the city’s gay community, prosecutors have postponed a public awareness campaign featuring posters of convicted methamphetamine dealers.

Authorities had planned to plaster the posters – with the defendants’ names, mug shots and sentencing information – in GLBT neighborhoods ravaged by the highly addictive stimulant.

But after meeting with GLBT activists, prosecutors said in a statement that the posters “will not be released pending further consideration of the matter.”

Activist Dan Carlson praised prosecutors for “their openness and willingness to hash this out.”

Carlson and other activists argued that the campaign, rather than deter crystal meth use, would needlessly vilify addicts who were caught selling small amounts of the drug to their friends. They also said the campaign could undermine efforts within the GLBT community to treat users.

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) – The students at North Eugene High School were too young to vote in the Nov. 2 elections, but they were old enough to be upset with the adults who cast ballots.

More than 100 students walked out of their classes Nov. 4 to protest the approval of Measure 36, the proposal to ban same-sex marriage that was decisively approved by Oregon voters.

Kristin “Khushi” Shrestha, 16, said the protest grew out of the frustration students felt after the measure passed.

“Everybody came to school and they were so depressed,” she said. “Our world is changing before our eyes. Our rights are going down the drain, and there’s nothing we can do about it because we can’t even vote yet.”

The students marched to a busy intersection holding banners while chanting, “Equal rights! Equal rights!”

Police warned the students to stay on the sidewalk and some “Yes on 36” kids rode their bikes in front of the protesters. Other than that, there was no trouble.

Students estimated that as many as 200 students joined the vocal procession.

“You know there’s something wrong where you get this big of a reaction from the youth,” said Rebecca Wells, 17.

Kay Graham, the assistant principal, kept a watchful eye “to see that nobody gets hurt.” She said the students will face the same consequences as any student skipping class, such as getting no credit for work they missed or credit for that day of school.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) – Convicted killer Demarco McCullum, who traded a promising athletic future for a cell on Texas death row, was executed for the abduction, robbery, beating and fatal shooting of a Houston man 10 years ago.

His victim’s mother was among four witnesses to watch McCullum die, but he did not acknowledge their presence.

McCullum, 30, was arrested the same day in 1994 that he was supposed to leave for Tyler Junior College, where he had an athletic scholarship after a standout football career as quarterback at Aldine High School in north Houston.

That summer, however, authorities linked him and several football-player companions to a series of robberies and assaults around Houston, culminating in the slaying of 29-year-old Michael Burzinski.

“I don’t want to say the word ‘closure,’ because a person never really experiences closure when you especially lose a child like this to violence,” Kay Burzinski, who lost her son 10 years ago, said after the execution. “Demarco McCullum viciously murdered our son. … I’m sure he was nervous, I’m sure he was afraid, and possibly it gave him a slight taste of what our Michael went through 10 years ago.”

McCullum was the 21st Texas inmate executed this year.

Nineteen years old when he was arrested, McCullum blamed his actions on a lack of maturity.

“I wasn’t one of those that had goals,” he said recently from death row.

Also arrested were Terrance Perro, Decedrick Gainous and Christopher Lewis. Gainous, who also was to have played football with McCullum at Tyler Junior College, and Perro received life prison terms. Lewis testified against McCullum and got a 15-year sentence.