NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) – A federal judge in Alabama has announced he will not consider Yale Law students for clerkships to protest the university’s policy of limiting military recruiters’ access to students.

William M. Acker Jr., a senior judge with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama in Birmingham and a 1952 graduate of Yale Law School, wrote to Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh about his decision in February.

“Please consider this an act of loyalty to YLS,” Acker wrote.

A federal judge ruled in January that a federal law requiring universities to let military recruiters on campus violates the school’s constitutional right to free speech. Immediately after the ruling, Yale’s law school returned to its decades-old policy of banning military recruiters.

The school, which temporarily halted that policy in 2002 to avoid losing federal funding, requires recruiters to sign a nondiscrimination pledge to prevent anti-gay bias.

Koh said Acker is the only judge he knows of who has acted against Yale in that way.

“I regret that one of our judicial alumni is not permitting our students to work with and gain the benefits of his view,” he said. “I hope he will reconsider.”

Military recruiters are not barred from the campus, but they are not included in the law school’s job interview program. The school’s policy went unchallenged for years, even after the 1995 passage of the Solomon Amendment that allows the Pentagon to cut funding to schools that prohibit or prevent military recruiters’ access to students.

Acker said he will continue to refuse Yale law students for clerkships “until YLS changes its mind” or until the courts rule that the Solomon Act is constitutional and enforceable by the government.

He also wrote that he is “exercising the same freedom of speech” that Hall protected for the Yale Law School faculty.

“Some of my very best law clerks have been from the law school from which I proudly graduated,” Acker wrote. “I thereby recognize that this publicly announced decision will hurt me more than the allowing of military recruiters would hurt YLS.”

A clerk in Acker’s office told The Hartford Courant that the judge would not comment on his letter.

Acker, 77, was nominated to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1982.

Carl C. Monk, executive director of the Association of American Law Schools, said in the 15 years he has been with the organization he has not heard of a judge withholding employment from an entire law school.

“I certainly regret that any employer would refuse to consider students that graduate from a school that has chosen to exclude discriminatory employers, whether that employer be the military or any other,” he said.

CLEVELAND, Ga. (AP) – White County school administrators are recommending the cutting of all “noncurricular clubs” at White County High School.

The plan, which would go to White County Board of Education as part of other recommended policy changes, follows on the school system’s agreement to allow a club for GLBT students and supportive classmates to form.

Superintendent Paul Shaw said that the policy change was something that has been in the works since principal Bryan Dorsey’s arrival in January.

“The principal has been considering a lot of things,” Shaw said. “As soon as he got here, he was hit with several clubs wanting to form. He’s hardly had time to catch his breath.”

The club that has stirred the most attention is the Gay-Straight Alliance, which later became Peers Rising in Diversity Education. The group’s appeal request to form a club at the school brought a crowd of about 250 people to a White County school board meeting on Feb. 24.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia had earlier said an agreement had been reached in which school officials will “drop their attempts to stop” the group.

This new proposal would affect a handful of clubs, including Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the Interact Club and Key Club.

“Clubs have not lived up to what they are supposed to be doing, and the Legislature is requiring that we do additional paperwork and things of that sort,” Shaw said. “Plus, we want to focus on academics this coming school year.”

He added the school system is revising its entire policy manual, including the one regarding clubs, and he hoped that the school board would approve that document by the end of the summer.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) – Monroe County school administrators decided to question students about their sexual behavior after parents expressed concern about adolescents having sex – but now some parents say the attention to detail in the planned survey is pornographic.

The 51-question survey, to be conducted May 18 with students in grades 6-12, includes topics such as intercourse, oral sex, dating and birth control.

“I read that thing, and it’s pornography to me,” parent Eric Warren told The Herald-Times. “To administer this survey in any workplace to adults over 18 would be sexual harassment.”

The voluntary, confidential survey also includes questions on abstinence, sex education and AIDS. Parents will be notified by mail and must inform the district if they do not wish their children to take the survey, which will be given to about one-third of the students.

The subject matter was not the only thing some Grandview Elementary School parents who previewed the survey found objectionable. Some objected to school officials’ plan to ask 12- and 13-year-olds such specific questions about sex.

Penny Buhr, whose son is a sixth-grader at Grandview, said he “doesn’t know about this stuff. Nor should he, at his age.”

Jennifer Staab, the district’s health programs coordinator, said the students already had studied sex education in fifth grade and noted some districts include sixth grade in middle school.

“Those kids will be in middle school this fall, and much of this arose from middle school level discussions,” Staab said.

Mike Shipman, director of operations for the 10,700-student Monroe County Community Schools district, said officials planned the survey after some parents last year expressed concern over reports that some middle school students were sexually active. The district had not done such a survey since 1993.

“Much of what we heard last spring was anecdotal and hearsay evidence,” he said. “We don’t have good, up-to-date local data.”

Students who took a test survey in October seemed eager to participate, said Staab.

“They felt ‘it was about time’ and seemed to want even more questions,” she said.

She added that officials were open to modifying the survey in line with “responsible” suggestions.

But Buhr did not seem swayed by school officials’ arguments.

“Unless something changes, we’ll just keep our kids home the day of the survey,” she said.

WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) – People who knew Jason Gage say he had a rare ability to energize any room, made friends easily and would do anything for someone in need, like the time he gave a drunk stranger $46 for a taxi ride home.

The 29-year old waiter, who dreamed of one day styling hair in a big city salon, was also openly gay and, friends say, a persistent and flamboyant flirt.

Gage was found dead a month ago in his downtown apartment, bludgeoned with a beer bottle and stabbed in the neck with a shard of glass. Within hours, police had arrested 23-year-old Joseph Lawrence and charged him with first-degree murder.

Reports that Gage may have made sexual advances toward his alleged attacker and the outpouring of grief has many here drawing parallels to the brutal 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who was lashed to a Wyoming fence, beaten and left in the cold to die.

According to a police affidavit, Lawrence, who had moved from Arizona a month earlier, acknowledged to striking Gage twice with a bottle in the head and stabbing him with a piece of glass.

Lawrence’s fiancée, Elizabeth Hostetler, said he told her Gage had made sexual advances.

“Something physical would have had to have happened for Joey to react that way,” Hostetler, who is six months pregnant, told The Associated Press. “But I also know it was not a hate crime … that it was not premeditated. I know he did not mean for any of this to happen.”

One of Matthew Shepard’s attackers had claimed he snapped in a drunken rage when Shepard made a sexual advance.

Unlike other states, Iowa does not have a hate crime classification for murder. If convicted, Lawrence faces life in prison without parole.

“Murder in the first degree is murder … there is nothing in the state higher than that,” said Linda Myers, assistant Black Hawk County attorney, who declined to comment on details of the ongoing investigation.

“We’re very confused and angry and frustrated,” said Michelle Gage, Jason’s older sister. “We don’t know why anyone would hurt him. He was so loving and compassionate. We hurt to our souls.”

Among his vast network of friends, efforts are underway to raise money for a scholarship fund in his name. Hundreds of T-shirts with his image and handcrafted pins have been sold. Three city churches passed collection plates for Gage at recent services. And a benefit has been scheduled this month at the city’s convention center.

“It’s a celebration for him, for who he was and to raise awareness about what happened and how things like this can be avoided in the future,” said Les Akers, owner of The Times bar, where Gage often showed up at closing time just to help wipe down tables and clean up.

Hostetler, the suspect’s fiancée, said Lawrence and Gage met for the first time several days before the slaying at a local bar.

Witnesses say Lawrence and Gage were together the night Gage was killed, bouncing from bar to bar, including the local gay club, Kings and Queens, before heading to an after-hours party.

Friends who had not heard from Gage had police check on him several days later. They found his body sprawled on the floor.

Hostetler says her boyfriend has gay friends and she insists there is more to the incident than has been reported so far.

“My friends who knew Jason have told me that when he was drinking, he would hit on you if he wanted, that he didn’t care if a person was straight or gay,” she said.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Dozens of Kansas ministers want to make it clear that not all clergy in the state support a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

A letter to the public signed by more than 50 ministers says the amendment violates basic principals of all faiths, which is to treat people equally, with love and respect. They said the recently-passed amendment will make the lives of thousands of Kansans more difficult.

“For me, as a Christian, if I am taking the faith seriously, there’s only one way I could vote and that’s no,” said the Rev. Robert Meneilly, a retired Prairie Village pastor who was among those who signed the letter. “If we are all made by the same God in the same image, we should all have the same rights.”

Bruce Ney, president of the group Kansans for Fairness, said the letter was put together by clergy members who “are somewhat taken aback by the idea that every Christian religion in the state of Kansas backs this amendment when, in fact, that is not true. This was their attempt to make that clear and get the word out.”

The letter is posted on the website of Kansans for Fairness, a group that supports human rights.

In the letter, the ministers say that “it is not the state government’s role to codify one religious interpretation of the Bible, or one religion over another in the Kansas Constitution. To the contrary, the great contribution of our constitution is to protect the rights of all faiths.”

But one of the leaders of an effort to pass the amendment, the Rev. Jerry Johnston, said the letter reflects the views of a “small group” of ministers and is not representative of the majority’s feelings on the issue.

“Religious liberty is to set people free by the power of the gospel, and the aim of all the vast majority who believe in this amendment is to protect marriage,” said Johnston, minister at First Family Church in Overland Park.

He said if same-sex couples are allowed to marry, there’s nothing to stop people who want group marriages from demanding their rights, too.

Besides defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman, the amendment bars the state from granting marriage in other relationships.

LAS VEGAS (AP) – Administrators are dropping sanctions against a prominent University of Nevada, Las Vegas, economics professor who was criticized for saying during a lecture that gays save less money for the future than heterosexuals.

But the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, representing tenured economist Hans Hoppe, called for the university to put principles of academic freedom in writing.

ACLU executive director Gary Peck and lawyer Allen Lichtenstein said Hoppe was not clearly exonerated in a letter from university President Carol Harter and in comments from interim university Chancellor Jim Rogers affirming Hoppe’s free-speech rights.

“While the university may see the matter closed, we do not and Hans does not,” Peck said. “What Hans said in class, whether you agree with it or not, was obviously covered by academic freedom and the First Amendment. He should never have been forced to face a series of inquisitors and defend his reputation.”

The university agreed to drop a discrimination complaint against Hoppe, 55, a conservative libertarian with almost 20 years at UNLV.

Hoppe had said he wanted an apology after being accused in a letter from a university provost of violating “standards of scholarship and instruction responsibility.”

Harter’s letter does not apologize, but rescinds what officials had called the provost’s “nondisciplinary letter of instruction” in Hoppe’s personnel file.

Hoppe was accused of bias for saying in a lecture last March that gays tend to save less than singles, the young and the old. He has insisted his theory has backing from economists worldwide and his generalization was not meant to offend anyone.

A gay student raised no objection during class, but later lodged a complaint saying Hoppe’s lecture should have been more politically correct.

NEW IPSWICH, N.H. (AP) – A teacher who got fired a decade ago for assigning controversial books to her classes is facing a fresh complaint.

Penny Culliton was fired from Mascenic High School in 1995 after assigning three books with gay themes to her English classes. She fought the decision and eventually was reinstated.

Now, the school’s Curriculum Committee is considering a parent’s complaint about a book being used in Culliton’s 10th-grade class. The parent says Dangerous Angels by Francesca Lia Block is disgusting.

The book, which the author describes as including “contemporary fairy tales with an edge,” has sexual themes, at least one gay character and nontraditional families.

Culliton had no comment on the complaint, other than to note that the book has won several awards.

Principal Craig Mueller said the committee hopes to be able to resolve the complaint, but if the parent is not satisfied, she can appeal to the superintendent. If that fails to resolve the complaint, the matter goes to the school board.

In 1995, Culliton was fired from Mascenic for teaching three novels with gay themes: Maurice by E.M. Forster, The Education of Harriet Hatfield by May Sarton, and The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene. Culliton later won her job back in binding arbitration.

“We hope we won’t go that route this time,” Mueller said.

Block’s website describes her books as “postmodern, magic-realist tales for all ages” and “contemporary fairy tales with an edge.” Block lives and writes in Los Angeles, where many of her stories take place.

Dangerous Angels is included in a course on modern and contemporary multicultural literature.

MARS HILL, N.C. (AP) – Student government leaders at Mars Hill College have voted against official recognition of a campus support group for gay students.

The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina threatened to cut off $1 million in annual support if the school sanctioned the group Open Doors.

Given the warning, Open Doors President Jason Miller he said he was encouraged by a close vote.

“We’ll be back next year,” Miller said. “And hopefully, it will go in our favor.”

Representatives of the Student Government Association voted 21-17 against recognizing Open Doors. Four students abstained and three were absent.

“I believe the decision rendered reflects the faith position held by most constituents within the Mars Hill College family,” school president Dan Lunsford said.

Many students worried about losing scholarship money if the club was approved, said Chris Gowan, a student senate member who campaigned against recognizing the club.

“It’s good for the college,” Gowan said, “and it’s good for the students.”

Junior class vice president Chelsey Gaddy said the club would have been open to all students who value diverse opinions, not just gays and lesbians.

“This just breaks my heart,” Gaddy said. “To me, this is about civil rights. People are going to be homosexual whether we recognize this club or not. I don’t see why we can’t allow it.”

OSHKOSH, Wis. (AP) – The best friend of convicted murderer Gary Hirte said he’s known Hirte since the seventh grade but doesn’t know why he would kill another man.

“He had everything going for him, so there was no purpose,” Eric Wenzelow told WBAY-TV in Green Bay.

Hirte, 19, was sentenced to a mandatory life prison term last month. Winnebago County District Attorney William Lennon had asked for a life sentence without the possibility of parole, but a judge gave Hirte a chance for parole in 32 years.

Hirte, an Eagle Scout and straight-A student, admitted stabbing and shooting to death Glenn Kopitske, 37, in August 2003 at Kopitske’s rural Town of Wolf River house, but pleaded insanity.

Hirte claimed a drunken sexual encounter with Kopitske sent him into a murderous rage, making him incapable of knowing right from wrong.

Prosecutors portrayed Hirte during his insanity trial as a heartless killer who murdered to see if he could accomplish yet another of his goals, then concocted the story after seeing a crime lab report. Kopitske’s parents have said their son was not gay.

Wenzelow, who testified against Hirte, told the station that their friendship became strained when Hirte was charged with murder.

He said he and some of Hirte’s other friends don’t believe Hirte’s version of why he killed Kopitske. He said they agree with the detectives’ theory.

“There was never a moment when I hung around with him that he showed homosexual urges or anything, so I didn’t believe that at all,” Wenzelow said.

Wenzelow said he was disgusted with Hirte’s actions and visited him in jail only after being asked by Hirte’s parents. He said he has no plans to visit Hirte in prison.