MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) –The Alabama House and Senate have not eased up on their dress codes requiring men to wear coats and ties and women to wear dresses or pants suits. But a number of lawmakers slipped on black T-shirts over their suits to encourage Alabama residents to get tested for AIDS.

The T-shirts, handed out to lawmakers by the Legislative Black Caucus, said “Got AIDS?” on the front and “How do you know?” on the back.

The chair of the House Black Caucus, Rep. Laura Hall, D-Huntsville, said she hopes the T-shirts will cause legislators to go home and get tested for HIV infection. She said if lawmakers were tested it would encourage their constituents to find out if they have AIDS.

She said a number of people in Alabama, particularly in black communities, may have AIDS and not know they have been infected.

“If they know they have been infected, they can get on medication and live a quality life,” said Hall, whose 25-year-old son, Darren, died of AIDS in 1992. She said Feb. 7 was National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

Rep. Thomas Jackson, D-Thomasville, said AIDS has become an epidemic in the black community.

“We’re trying to educate people about this deadly disease,” said Jackson, wearing the T-shirt over his business suit.

DENVER (AP) – A Colorado Springs high school defended its use of a two-track system used in recognizing student clubs that provides privileges to one type while denying them to a second type that includes the Gay-Straight Alliance.

Federal courts had already made clear that if any non-class-related clubs were allowed at a public high school then all student-created and student-led clubs must be permitted.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the case, says there are 50 such clubs at other Colorado high schools and more than 2,000 around the country, set up after the passage of the Equal Access Act. The clubs seek to promote GLBT tolerance and acceptance.

Palmer High School in Colorado Springs, which has refused to recognize the GSA as a full-fledged student group, created a two-track system for student groups. Groups in the first class, deemed related to the curriculum, would be allowed to use the public address system and posting notices. Organizations in the second group, with no direct connection to curriculum, could meet at the school but not use the PA system or post notices.

Lawyer Alfred McDonnell, representing the GSA for the American Civil Liberties Union, conceded federal court decisions, including the Supreme Court, had not dealt clearly with a two-track system.

“There are no cases that have this two-track approach. We have our quotes; they have their quotes,” he said. McDonnell said that nevertheless there is nothing in the Equal Access Act that authorizes the exclusion of non-curriculum related groups.

U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch agreed that the Supreme Court had not settled the two-system approach.

“We believe deference is owed” to the decisions made by school officials, who carefully study each request to form a student group, said Eric Bentley, the attorney representing the school district.

McDonnell said the decision against the GSA was discrimination because two other clubs were granted official club status to meet and talk about current events and tolerance of other cultures.

Matsch said the definition of current events seems key to the dispute. “Current events seems like it cuts across any reasonable curriculum in a high school in a democracy,” Matsch said. He noted that same-sex marriage had become a much talked about news item.

The judge also said that issues of freedom of speech could also come into play when a full trial is held in the case. No trial date has been set.

ALBANY, New York (AP) – A judge reinstated criminal charges against a small-town mayor who got in trouble for marrying a series of same-sex couples last year.

New Paltz Village Mayor Jason West was hit with 24 misdemeanor counts shortly after marrying about two-dozen same-sex couples last February, helping ignite a heated nationwide debate over same-sex marriage.

But the charges were later dismissed by a town court judge who said there were constitutional problems in banning same-sex marriages.

Ulster County Court Judge J. Michael Bruhn resurrected the case, saying public officials cannot pick and choose which laws to obey. He said the case was not about the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, but whether West lived up to his oath of office to uphold the law.

The case will now go to trial, barring a successful appeal by West’s lawyers.

Attorney Joshua Rosenkranz said no decision had been made yet on whether to appeal, but added that “I know that Jason West is chomping at the bit to face a jury of his peers.”

West faces fines and up to a year in jail if convicted on the misdemeanor counts of solemnizing marriages without a license.

West has maintained he was upholding the couples’ constitutional rights – and thus his oath of office – by allowing them to wed.

“If I told those gay couples ... ‘No, I can’t marry you because you’re gay,’ I’d be violating the state constitution and I’d be violating my oath of office,” West said.

The charges against West were part of a series of legal actions since the same-sex marriage issue flared up a year ago. West became the second public official in the nation to marry same-sex couples, following San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

PITTSBURGH (AP) – A woman should be able to see the child of her former lesbian partner even though the birth mother does not want to her to do so, the woman’s attorney argued.

“Every parent has a right to have and develop a good relationship with their child,” Alphonse David, an attorney for Lambda Legal, told state Superior Court judges.

The two women began a relationship in the late 1980s, and one became pregnant through artificial insemination in 1992. The two raised the girl until they separated in August 1996. A year later, a court granted custody to the birth mother and allowed visitation rights to the other woman, identified in court documents only as T.B. The biological mother appealed.

In December 2001, the state Supreme Court ruled that T.B. had legal standing as a parent and sent the case back to the trial court in Cambria County, where both women live, to work out visitation. But Cambria County Judge F. Joseph Leahey ruled in June that because the child had been alienated from the other woman, visitation wouldn’t be in the child’s best interest.

T.B. appealed to the Superior Court, and David told the panel that she has only seen the girl, who is now 11, once since 1997 during a psychological evaluation.

The birth mother’s attorney, Nicholas Banda, argued that a doctor had said visitation would be stressful for the child. He also argued that because T.B. had only seen the child once since 1997, there essentially was no relationship.

David countered that the court has granted visitation in cases in which a parent hadn’t seen a child in as much as 10 years. He also said that to deny visitation on grounds that the child was alienated from her would lead parents in other custody cases to employ the same tactic to deny visitation to the non-custodial parent.

David asked for immediate visitation, but said that T.B. would stop visitation if, after six months, the child no longer wished to see her or if a therapist believed it wasn’t a good idea to continue.

The three judges who heard the arguments questioned Banda sharply.

“Why should this custodial parent be rewarded for alienating this child from the co-parent?” asked President Judge Joseph A. Del Sole.

Judge Michael T. Joyce said the court has punished parents for such actions previously.

The judges agreed that visitation could be stressful, but said that’s common in many custody cases and that steps could be taken to reduce it. They didn’t indicate when they would rule.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Sponsors of the hate crimes bill hoped that this year would be different. The bill had new sponsors and a hearing in the Senate – a body that had passed similar legislation a few years ago.

But in the end, it was the same old story. The bill was killed on a 4-3 vote by the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee.

The bill would have created a penalty enhancement for crimes in which the victim has been selected because of a bias or prejudice held by the perpetrator.

A companion bill is being offered in the House. It has not been assigned to a committee.

Sponsor Sen. Karen Hale, D-Salt Lake tasked her colleagues to “have the courage to step forward today, to step up and say, you know, enough is enough.”

But it wasn’t enough.

Nor was the testimony of Sonia James, an African-American woman from Sandy who had her car windows smashed and her home spray-painted with racial epithets and has also had white supremacist-themed literature left on her front porch.

“I have been violated in my home. I don’t feel safe anymore. I don’t feel like I can enjoy what I’ve worked for,” said James who cried during her testimony. “I urge you to pass the bill for everyone, for African Americans, for LDS, for Jews – consider it for everyone.”

Three opponents of the bill said the bill was part of gay agenda to create special protections in law for homosexuals and that passing it would force Utah’s public schools to teach the practice of homosexuality and tolerance to children.

Others said they believe the bill would tip the scales of justice for some.

“We have Lady Justice that is blindfolded and holds the scales. This bill removes that blindfold and tops those scales,” said Maryann Christensen of the Utah Eagle Forum. “I think when you give any one group of people privileges and target other groups of people with enhanced penalties, that it just creates a more intense atmosphere of hatred.

For years, police and prosecutors, including Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, have asked for a more effective, usable hate crimes statues.

Over the past five years an average of 62 hate crimes are committed in Utah, but the existing state law has rarely been used.

“Public safety thinks of this committee as a cop-friendly committee,” said Ken Wallentine, a police officer and former prosecutor who represents the Utah Law Enforcement Legislative Committee. “I’d like to you to think about a bunch of cops asking you to give us a tool that will help us change our communities.”

Wallentine said police officers and prosecutors who can’t use the existing state law are frustrated each time they find themselves at the scene of an assault or vandalism where a hate crime has clearly occurred. What they want, he said, is the ability to adequately address those crimes in law.

“To punish, not evil, not unrighteous thought, but conduct,” Wallentine said.