Six out of seven California Supreme Court Justices reversed a decision of the California Court of Appeal that called into question the validity of second-parent adoptions. The case, Sharon S. v. Superior Court, involved a dispute over the validity of second-parent adoptions, which allow both members of a same-sex or other unmarried couple to become the legal parents of their children. In an October, 2001, decision that sent shock waves throughout the state, the lower court appeared to call into question the legitimacy of these long-standing adoptions. Even as modified a month later, the decision still created confusion in an area affecting thousands of children in families throughout California.

“This is a great victory for gay parents everywhere,” said Jennifer Pizer, senior staff attorney for Lambda Legal. “By affirming second parent adoption, the California Supreme Court remedied an appalling lower court decision that ignored the best interests of children and created confusion where California families need clarity and stability.” Writing for the majority, Justice Werdegar held that “second parent adoptions offer the possibility of obtaining the security and advantages of two parents for some of California’s neediest children.” Justice Werdegar also stressed the importance of providing legal protections and stability for children born to same-sex and other unmarried couples: “Unmarried couples who have brought a child into the world with the expectation that they will raise it together, and who have jointly petitioned for adoption, should be on notice that if they separate, the same rules concerning custody and visitation as apply to all other parents will apply to them.”

Men at gay bathhouses in Los Angeles tested positive for HIV at a rate twice that of men tested in public clinics or community-based agencies.

County health officials responded to the latest study by suggesting an increase in voluntary testing and safe-sex education at the bathhouses.

“It’s a great place to do more intervention and prevention work,” said Trista Bingham, director of the study and an epidemiologist with the county Department of Health Services.

The results of the study were announced last week. The survey found that, of 916 men tested at two Los Angeles bathhouses between May 2001 and December 2002, 102 of them were diagnosed with HIV.

Nationwide, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a 7.1 percent increase in HIV infections among gay and bisexual men last year.

The infection rate rose for the third year in a row after declining for several years.

Two San Francisco AIDS activists have pleaded no contest to making harassing phone calls to public health officials and newspaper reporters.

Michael Petrelis and David Pasquarelli were sentenced to three years’ probation in connection with phone calls in 2001. The men were also ordered to attend counseling sessions, and are still subject to restraining orders that prohibit them from contacting the recipients of the phone calls.

Petrelis and Pasquarelli were arrested in November 2001 and charged with making dozens of threatening phone calls to local newspaper employees and to public health officials. The men were apparently angry over newspaper stories about AIDS and about public health campaigns that they said stigmatized gay sex.

The men, both of whom have AIDS, said they agreed to plead no contest to misdemeanor charges because their health had deteriorated and they wanted to end the case.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry scolded the Vatican Aug. 1 for saying Catholic politicians like himself have a “moral duty” to oppose laws granting legal rights to gay couples.

“I believe in the church and I care about it enormously,” said the Massachusetts senator. “But I think that it’s important to not have the church instructing politicians. That is an inappropriate crossing of the line in America.”

The Vatican had urged Catholics and non-Catholics on July 31 to unite in campaigning against gay marriages and gay adoptions. The 12-page document, issued by the church, presents a battle plan for politicians confronted with legislation legalizing same-sex unions and rails against gay adoption (see story, page 33).

Kerry opposes gay marriage, saying it is a right reserved in America for men and women, but he has said gay couples should have the same legal rights as husbands and wives.

The United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, citing its nondiscrimination policy, said July 31 that it will no longer fund an urban school program of the Philadelphia-based Boy Scouts chapter.

The Philadelphia-area United Way group had stopped funding the chapter itself after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the Boy Scouts of America could exclude gays.

On July 31, the United Way said it would also pull funding for the Learning for Life program, which it had continued to support because the program was not subject to the ban on gay members and leaders. The local group’s president, Christine James-Brown, said the board of directors decided there wasn’t enough separation between the two groups.

The group gave about $400,000 for the Cradle of Liberty Council to operate Learning for Life in Philadelphia, Montgomery and Delaware counties and also funded it in Chester County.

Cradle of Liberty scout executive William T. Dwyer III said he was “incredibly disappointed.”

“In the face of the fact that our board came out with a statement that it was nondiscriminatory, and still to have this happen to us, is absolutely unbelievable,” Dwyer said.

In May the Philadelphia Boy Scouts defied the national organization by adding “sexual orientation” to its nondiscrimination policy. But, facing pressure from the national organization, the chapter rescinded that position in June.

Dwyer said the local organization has no choice but to follow national policies.

A bus company in Philadelphia that offered a discount charter to a group of AIDS activists, only to have one of its drivers pull to the side of the road and refuse to continue when he learned who his passengers were, settled a discrimination complaint Aug. 1.

Krapf Bus Companies, of Exton, Pennsylvania, agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to each of the 10 passengers, retrain its staff and post a nondiscrimination policy on every charter bus, according to the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, which filed the complaint.

“It’s just an unfortunate incident,” said Krapf attorney Randy Schauer. “Certainly what the driver did was not the company’s policy.”

The AIDS activists group ACT UP had chartered the bus last summer to take a group of activists to a legislative hearing in Harrisburg, where they had hoped to speak against a state regulation requiring the names of people who test positive for HIV to be recorded in a state database.

Shortly after the bus left Philadelphia, passengers said, the driver became upset when he overheard passengers talking about AIDS, then pulled over and disembarked, exclaiming, “I don’t want to catch anything.”

AIDS Law Project’s executive director, Ronda Goldfein, said it took 90 minutes of roadside negotiations between an ACT UP official and a bus company dispatcher to persuade the driver to continue. The group arrived in Harrisburg late and missed part of the meeting, she said.