SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A San Francisco trial judge has reaffirmed his decision to strike down California’s marriage laws on grounds that they violate the constitutional right of gay and lesbian residents to be treated equally and to marry whomever they choose.

San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer’s final ruling is substantially the same as the one he issued a month ago in a pair of cases brought by a dozen same-couples and the city of San Francisco.

In it, he reiterated that that laws limiting marriage to a man and a woman discriminate against same-sex couples on the basis of gender without a legitimate state interest for doing so. He expressly dismissed the arguments brought by California’s attorney general that tradition provided sufficient grounds for such discrimination.

“To say that all men and all women are treated the same in that each may not marry someone of the same gender misses the point,” Kramer wrote. “The marriage laws establish classifications (same gender vs. opposite gender) and discriminate on those gender-based classifications.”

The decision orders the state registrar to issue gender-neutral marriage licenses, but is stayed automatically to give opponents time to appeal. Two groups that oppose same-sex marriage have said they intend to do just that.

Meanwhile, legislative committees in Sacramento are scheduled to hold hearings on a pair of bills that would ask voters to decide whether the state’s existing ban on same-sex marriage should be moved from the statutes Kramer overturned to the California Constitution.

The proposed constitutional amendments would also strip same-sex couples who register as domestic partners of the marriage-like rights lawmakers already have granted them.

SOUTH WINDSOR, Conn. (AP) – Four South Windsor high school students were sent home April 15 after T-shirts they wore bearing anti-gay slogans caused disturbances, students and school officials said.

The boys, who wore white T-shirts with the statement, “Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve,” say their constitutional right to free speech was violated.

“We were just voicing our opinions,” said Steven Vendetta, who made the T-shirts with his friends, Kyle Shinfield, David Grimaldi and another student who was not identified by the Journal Inquirer of Manchester. “We didn’t tell other people to think what we’re thinking. We just told them what we think.”

Other students say they felt threatened by the shirts, which also quoted Bible verses pertaining to homosexuality.

“I didn’t feel safe at this school today,” said Diana Rosen, who is co-president of the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance.

Vendetta said the idea for the T-shirts was in response to an annual Day of Silence earlier in the week. The project was organized by the national Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.

Students nationwide refuse to speak for one day to highlight discrimination and harassment toward homosexuals.

Vendetta and his friends, who oppose civil unions, wanted to make their feelings known. The state House of Representatives passed a civil unions bill April 13.

“We felt if they could voice their opinions for it, we could voice our opinion against it,” he said. “There is another side to this debate, and we’re representing it.”

Principal John DiIorio said that students’ freedom of speech is protected if it does not disrupt education.

He said he told the boys they could continue to wear the shirts if it was not a distraction to others. But heated arguments and altercations ensued almost immediately, with some students becoming “very emotional,” said one student, Sam Etter.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) – Before leaving office, outgoing Mayor Mike Rundle announced he was gay, partly because of a statewide vote in favor of an amendment to the Kansas Constitution banning marriage and civil unions for same-sex couples.

“It is with dignity and pride that I acknowledge that I have been Lawrence mayor and in all likelihood, Lawrence’s first gay mayor,” Rundle said April 12 after finishing his one-year term. His announcement was greeted with applause from the audience and fellow commissioners.

Lawrence has a city manager form of government. The mayor, who is picked by the city commission, has the power to make some appointments to advisory boards and commissions, but the position is otherwise largely ceremonial.

The change in leadership happened during the commission’s first meeting after the April 5 election.

Rundle said he had been the focus of “whispering campaign,” rumors and smear tactics after he first entered politics in 1987.

Rundle said he did not acknowledge his sexuality earlier because he wanted to keep the political focus on his quest for good government and avoid triggering a barrier of prejudice that might detract from that quest.

“I think, perhaps, that is less of a concern today than it was 18 years ago,” said Rundle, who continues to serve as a commissioner.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – Attacks on people based on their racial or sexual orientation continue to make up the vast majority of the hate crimes in Maine, according to recent statistics from the Attorney General’s Office.

Law enforcement agencies around Maine referred 107 bias attacks or threats to the state in 2004. Of those, 59 were racially based and 35 were based on perceived sexual orientation. The state also received reports of crimes based on religion, nationality, gender, mental disability and reproductive rights.

“Racial issues, racial tensions dominate year after year,” said Thom Harnett, assistant attorney general for civil rights education and enforcement. He said the report is consistent with data gathered five years ago.

Maine law does not recognize the term “hate crime,” though it is commonly used to describe violations of the state Civil Rights Act, which protects people from threats “motivated by reason of race, color, religion, sex, ancestry, national origin, physical or mental disability or sexual orientation.”

In Maine, violence against GLBT people has been illegal, but Gov. John Baldacci only recently signed a law making it illegal to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation in areas such as housing, employment and credit.

Of the 107 complaints that merited action last year, the Attorney General’s Office received 16 court orders barring defendants from harming the victim.

It is difficult to compare Maine’s statistics with others states because records differ from state to state, said Stephen Wessler of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Hate Violence at the University of Southern Maine.

Wessler says many states also do not recognize crimes against people based on sexual orientation as a bias crime.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – The $7.75 receipt is tattered at the edges now, and the printing is faded.

But to Melinda Vest and Beverly Morgan, it is precious proof positive that last year, during the brief window when same-sex couples were allowed to marry in Oregon, their marriage was certified in Multnomah County.

The receipt, saved for months and worn smooth, is one of dozens of pieces of memorabilia being collected and displayed by the county, home to Portland, where more than 3,000 same-sex couples from across the country came to get marriage licenses before a judge put a stop to the six weeks of impromptu weddings in mid-April of 2004.

The collection, dubbed the “Wedding Album Project,” will be on display for a month at Multnomah County’s headquarters, then turned over to the Oregon Historical Society for its research archives, and the use of future historians.

A similar collection was put together by the San Francisco Chronicle, which published a special section featuring photographs from gay readers who had gotten married.

In Oregon, every couple that got a marriage license got an invitation from the county in the mail inviting them to take part in the project. So far, hundreds have done so.

Besides the receipt, there are countless photos of beaming brides and bashful grooms. Some sent photographs of themselves in younger days, alongside pictures of their decades-later wedding day. One couple submitted a DVD of their wedding celebration; another framed their wedding invitations and vows, along with pictures of the ceremony.

“This is a time capsule,” said Tracy Waters, who submitted framed photos and the invitation from her wedding to Laurel Harroun, her partner for 30 years. “I am proud of us – we are both proud of each other. We have both had life challenges to sort out, and I have felt compelled to get it in a frame for herstory’s sake, because I believe there needs to be room for everyone in the circle.”

One woman photocopied her journal entry from the day of her wedding, while others wrote testimonials about their time together, their year of being married, and the backlash against same-sex marriage in Oregon, which culminated in a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

“We met on Feb. 5, 1966,” wrote Washington resident Vern Robbins. “At the time we met I was working in a nightclub as a lounge singer. We went home together and never ever slept apart after that.”

Robbins’ partner, Glen, died in January of diabetes, Robbins writes.

“Thank you, Oregon, for allowing me to grant his greatest wish [to be married],” Robbins’ submission concludes.

Same-sex marriage remains a hot-potato topic in Oregon, with the Legislature debating civil unions and a decision pending from the Supreme Court on the legality of the amendment banning same-sex marriage, which passed in November with 57 percent of the vote. Last week, the Oregon Supreme Court nullified the same-sex marriage licenses Multnomah County issued.

But Ken DuBois, a spokesperson for the Oregon Historical Society, said the organization jumped at the chance to permanently house the wedding album project.

“Whether people are in favor of it or against it, it is part of history and there is no denying that,” DuBois said. “We have to have as complete a record as we can possibly get of important times in our state’s history. Just imagine how interesting this personal writing will be in 50 or 60 years.”

County commissioner Maria Rojo de Steffey, one of four county commissioners who spearheaded the county’s drive to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, said the idea for the wedding album came up when the county was looking for something to commemorate the first anniversary, traditionally celebrated with gifts of paper.

“We have gotten some calls about this, from people telling us it is the wrong thing to do,” said Rojo de Steffey, who said she received hate mail and death threats during the first flush of the same-sex marriage decision in 2004. “But we feel strongly about it, about commemorating these folks and their marriages.”

The county is also considering the possibility of doing an oral history project with some of the same-sex couples who were married, she said.

Anne Clark, a 43-year-old graduate student in clinical psychology at Antioch University of New England, was one of the couples who got married last year in Multnomah County. She was so moved by the other couples she met that she changed the topic of her dissertation to focus on the meaning of marriage for a cross-section of the couples she met.

When she finishes the dissertation, she plans to donate a bound copy to the wedding album project.

“I felt that I had to do this for historical purposes,” Clark said. “I feel like I should be someone who speaks out, who talks about what the experience was like, and who shares the experience with someone else through my own words.”

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – A gay candidate for school superintendent was rejected by the district’s board in front of a boisterous crowd.

Two residents of the 12,000-student Central Dauphin School District danced arm-in-arm after the 5-4 vote, which board chair Michael Mausner said reflected Robert W. Pellicone’s work history and not his sexual orientation.

“I know people’s votes were what they believe to be best,” said Mausner, who voted against Pellicone.

Pellicone did not attend the meeting and did not immediately return a telephone message left at his office in the Shoreham-Wading River Central School District in New York, where he is director of transitional services and was previously the district’s superintendent.

Board member Phillip Garbacik Jr. suggested that opposition to Pellicone was fueled by “the politics of hate demonstrated by some members of our community.”

Pellicone, 58, was fired from the Beverly Hills School District in California in 1999 after being accused of misusing a district credit card. He sued the district for discrimination, claiming he was fired because he is gay, and received $159,000 in a settlement. A district investigation found no fraud.

Opponents also questioned a principal’s alleged altering of a student’s math test grade while Pellicone was superintendent in Shoreham-Wading River.

Officials in Central Dauphin and Shoreham-Wading River say Pellicone has improved student performance on state achievement tests.

The board plans to seek other candidates for the job, which becomes vacant when Superintendent Barbara Hasson retires July 7.

PITTSBURGH (AP) – A woman can see the child she had with her former lesbian partner even though the birth mother does not want to her to do so, a state appeals court ruled.

The case, decided by a state Superior Court panel, is essentially a custody case, and the women’s sexual orientation played little role in the decision. Rather, the court said the biological mother should not be rewarded for alienating the child from her former partner, who is identified in court papers only as T.B.

A gay rights group that argued the case for T.B. said the ruling would protect the rights of all parents.

“The court valued this parent-child relationship the same as any other, and acted to preserve it without regard to sexual orientation or the other parent’s bitterness,” said Alphonso David, an attorney for Lambda Legal, a gay-rights group based in New York City.

The appeals court sent the case back to a judge in Cambria County, where both women live, to determine how to arrange visitation in the child’s best interest.

“The court is reinstating immediate visitation at this point,” Alphonso said. “She is excited to see her daughter.”

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 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 to work out visitation. But county Judge F. Joseph Leahey ruled in June that because the child had been alienated from T.B., visitation wasn’t in the child’s best interest.

T.B. appealed to the Superior Court, saying the birth mother had driven a wedge between her and the girl, who is now 11. She has only seen the girl once since 1997 during a psychological evaluation.

The birth mother’s attorney, Nicholas Banda, did not immediately return a message left at his office seeking comment. He had argued that because T.B. had only seen the child once since 1997, there essentially was no relationship.

Superior Court Judge Michael T. Joyce wrote that the biological mother should not be rewarded for seeking to alienate the child.

“It is inconceivable that an embittered spouse who successfully estranges the children from the other spouse … should be rewarded,” Joyce wrote. “The preposterousness of this scenario is equally applicable to the case … despite appellant’s non-traditional status.”