SACRAMENTO (AP) – A new state study found that the overall number of hate crimes in California dropped 5.5 percent last year to the lowest number in a decade, but crimes against blacks, Hispanics and Asians increased.

For the third consecutive year, the number of hate crimes decreased from 1,491 to 1,409 from 2003 to 2004, according to a report released by Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

“The numbers are coming down from the peak in 2001 after the terrorist attacks,” said Robin Schwanke of the Department of Justice, adding that the numbers mirror the general decline in violent crime. “I don’t know exactly why, but it’s good they’re decreasing.”

The study found that anti-white hate crimes decreased 28 percent from 85 to 61; anti-gay crimes fell 22 percent from 337 to 263; and religion-motivated hate crimes dropped 7 percent.

Crimes against people of Arab or Middle Eastern descent showed the greatest decline, dropping 35 percent from 161 to 105, according to the report. Those numbers had spiked dramatically after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Anti-black hate crimes saw the biggest increase, with about 500 or 35 percent of the total. Crimes against Asian/Pacific Islanders rose 8 percent to 69. Anti-Hispanic crimes jumped 34 percent to 138.

“Because of 9/11, there was such a degree of hate crimes against Muslims that African-Americans were knocked off the pedestal,” said Rick Callender, president of the San Jose/Silicon Valley branch of the NAACP. “It is unfortunate to see that we have once again regained that post.”

The study, called “Hate Crime in California 2004,” includes reported crimes based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin or physical or mental disability. The study provides statistics on reported hate crime incidents, victims, prosecutions and convictions.

At least 60 percent of the incidents are crimes based on race, ethnicity and national origin.

Los Angeles County reported the highest number of hate crimes with 501, followed by San Francisco with 144.

State prosecutors filed 277 hate crime cases last year. Of those, 139 resulted in a hate crime conviction, 103 resulted in other convictions and 36 resulted in no conviction.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – The sponsors of a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage sued California’s attorney general Aug. 2 over the summary the state prepared for the group’s signature-gathering petitions.

The lawsuit claims Attorney General Bill Lockyer inaccurately described the measure, which would also strip same-sex couples of domestic partnership rights.

The suit says Locker, a Democrat, highlighted the amendment’s effects on registered domestic partners instead of explaining that its chief purpose was to preserve marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

“The Attorney General has failed to carry out his duty to prepare a neutral, factual title and summary,” said Mathew Staver, whose Liberty Counsel law firm is representing VoteYesMarriage.com.

Staver wants the court to order Lockyer to revise the petition language. Until the matter is resolved, the group won’t be circulating the petitions required to gather the 598,105 signatures it needs to qualify the amendment for the June 2006 ballot.

Lockyer spokesperson Tom Dresslar defended the attorney general’s summary of the amendment, saying it was a fair representation that a judge is likely to uphold.

“The title and summary is 100-percent accurate in describing what the initiative would do,” Dresslar said. “It wipes out registered domestic partner rights and obligations that currently exist in California law.”

Meanwhile, a second group that also wants to ban same-sex marriage and do away with domestic partner rights in California with a constitutional amendment has begun gathering signatures. That amendment is sponsored by a group called ProtectMarriage.com.

Elsewhere on Aug. 2, same-sex marriage opponents filed a ballot initiative aimed at amending the Massachusetts Constitution to ban same-sex marriages. The initiative would define marriage as between a man and a woman.

The measure is part of an effort to overturn same-sex marriage, which the state Supreme Judicial Court legalized in 2003. Massachusetts is the only state to allow marriages between same-sex couples.

LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) – A mobile home belonging to a gay couple was torched and an offensive epithet was spray-painted on the front steps, authorities said.

Paul Day, 25, and Christopher Robertson, 23, returned home from errands to find their house in Kings Manor Mobile Home Park in Lakeland burned and the words “Die Fag” spray-painted on the front steps.

The case is being investigated as an arson with burglary, Lakeland Fire Department spokesperson Cheryl Edwards said. But officials remain tight-lipped about whether it was being investigated as a hate crime, which would allow for enhanced criminal penalties.

The law defines such a crime as one in which the victim is intentionally picked based on race, color, religion, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation, advanced age or mental or physical disabilities.

Edwards said the fire department wasn’t releasing any information about the fire.

Day said someone apparently poured a flammable substance all over the carpet and torched it, causing an estimated $15,000 in damages. The home, which just had three months of renovations completed, is in ruins, Day said.

When Day moved to the mobile-home park a couple of years ago, he said a group of teens and young adults sometimes taunted him as he checked his mail.

“I tried to not associate with people here,” said Day, who works at an auto-parts store in Auburndale. “We’ve just tried to stay to ourselves.”

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – The state of Nebraska has been ordered by a federal judge to pay $156,960 in attorney fees to lawyers who are fighting the state’s same-sex marriage ban.

The fees will not have to be paid until all appeals in the case are finalized.

Tim Butz, executive director of the Nebraska American Civil Liberties Union, said the fees were awarded Aug. 1 by U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Bataillon.

The judge in May ruled that Nebraska’s 5-year-old same-sex marriage ban was too broad and deprived gays and lesbians of participation in the political process.

While the amendment specifically banned same-sex marriage, it went further than similar bans in many states by prohibiting same-sex couples from enjoying many of the legal protections that heterosexual couples enjoy.

Seventy percent of Nebraskans approved the amendment in 2000.

The ruling has been appealed by the state to the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. Should the state win on appeal, the awarding of attorney fees could be reversed.

The group of plaintiffs challenging Nebraska’s ban is represented by Nebraska ACLU and the New York-based Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.

WAYNE, N.J. (AP) – An employee at William Paterson University who was reprimanded for using a private e-mail to describe homosexuals as “perversions” says his rights were violated.

Jihad Daniel, 68, of Hackensack, made his comments in March in response to an e-mail he received that had been sent university-wide by professor Arlene Holpp Scala. That message invited people to a film about lesbian relationships, titled Ruthie and Connie: Every Room in the House.

Daniel, who works repairing the university’s computer networks, responded in an e-mail to Scala that he did not want to receive messages about Ruthie and Connie.

“These are perversions,” he wrote as part of his one-paragraph response.

Daniel went on to write that “the absence of God in higher education brings on confusion. That is why in these classes the Creator of the heavens and the earth is never mentioned.”

Scala forwarded the e-mail to a university office responsible for handling discrimination complaints, saying she thought it was threatening and also went against the school’s anti-discrimination policy.

The publicly funded university reprimanded Daniel, saying his comments were derogatory and demeaning.

Daniel, who also takes communications classes part-time at the university, challenged the reprimand.

“Even if someone didn’t like what you said, you still have the right to say it,” said Daniel, who told The Record of Bergen County that he was expressing his Muslim beliefs.

Daniel’s appeals have been rejected by the university. A Philadelphia-based organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, has taken up the case and says it will fight to have the reprimand removed.

WASHINGTON (AP) – A neighbor who confessed to killing the mayor’s liaison to the gay and lesbian community was sentenced to 24 years behind bars – the maximum under voluntary guidelines.

District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Retchin could have departed from guidelines and given William Parrott, Jr. life in prison. He has no prior criminal record.

Parrott, 38, said a “binge of smoking crack cocaine, marijuana and alcohol” led him to stab Wanda Alston, 45, multiple times in her home March 16. Parrott tried to get residential drug treatment in the weeks before the crime but was turned down, said Assistant U.S. Attorney John Cummings.

“Perhaps if he’d got that, this might not have happened,” Retchin said, adding that she hopes the case draws attention to the need for more available drug treatment.

Alston’s friends and family – including her 83-year-old mother, maneuvering with a walker – packed the courtroom. Tissues were passed up and down aisles.

Alston’s friend Veronica Wilson remembered Alston as a “kind, loving, generous, sweet human being.”

“She just had to take his stab wounds one at a time, until she died,” said Alston’s sister, Aurelia Lewis. “The pain will never go away,” she added.

Shackled and in an orange jumpsuit, Parrott faced Alston’s loved ones and apologized.

“Wanda Alston was not only a neighbor, she was a friend – someone I talked to,” Parrott said. Her family believes that’s why she opened the door to him.