Presbyterians chose as one of their top officers a female pastor who believes in ordaining gays and lesbians and appointing them as church officers.

The Rev. Susan R. Andrews said she will not push the issue at the 215th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), which runs through May 31 in Denver, Colorado.

“She flat out declared she was for it this evening, but she doesn’t believe the church is ready for that and won’t push for it this year,” said Jerry Van Marter, spokesperson for the church headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky. “She believes it would be counterproductive.”

Andrews, who is pastor of Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Maryland., was politically and theologically the most liberal of the three candidates, Van Marter said. She was elected May 24 by a majority after a second ballot.

Refusing to bend to pressure from the Bush administration, Maryland’s Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich signed a bill May 22 that reduces criminal penalties for seriously ill people who smoke marijuana.

Ehrlich is the first GOP governor to sign a bill protecting medical marijuana patients from jail, according to the Marijuana Policy Project. The Bush administration had pressed him to veto the measure.

The new law does not legalize marijuana, but reduces the penalty to a maximum $100 fine with no jail time. Defendants, however, must convince a judge they need marijuana for medical reasons.

Previously, possession or use of marijuana brought penalties of up to a year in prison or a $1,000 fine.

Despite opposition from some Republicans, Ehrlich had indicated support for the bill early on. Backers of the legislation say smoking marijuana can ease the symptoms of serious illnesses such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease.

A St. Louis mother who filed a civil lawsuit after she was asked to leave a high school assembly about tolerance for gay students has reached a settlement with public school officials.

The American Center for Law and Justice said St. Louis school officials have agreed to revise their policy, clarifying the right of parents to observe school-sponsored events. The ACLJ represented the mother, Debra Loveless.

Loveless’s daughter attends Metro High School. The suit contended that in October 2001, Loveless decided not to allow her daughter to attend an assembly featuring a group that supports gay student rights.

Loveless tried to attend herself but was asked to leave. In the suit, Loveless charged that her exclusion violated her rights of free speech, equal protection and parental liberty.

As part of the settlement, school officials can still exclude parents if they disrupt the event.

Fifty-four percent of New Hampshire residents favor a law that would allow the state to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples, according to a University of New Hampshire poll released May 23.

The poll, conducted by UNH’s Survey Center, found that 42 percent of the 509 adults it polled opposed the idea.

Younger residents were much more likely than older ones to support such legislation. Among adults age 17 to 29, 70 percent support same-sex marriage while 64 percent of adults over 70 are opposed.

Among the sexes, 65 percent of women support same-sex marriage, compared to 30 percent who oppose it. Forty-three percent of the men polled supported same-sex marriages, with 54 percent opposing it.

Protestants and Catholics were both evenly divided with half supporting same-sex marriage and half opposing.

The poll found broad support for extending many of the specific benefits of marriage to same-sex couples, such as pension and social security; automatic inheritance rights without taxes; and making medical decisions for an incapacitated partner.

The poll was conducted by the UNH Survey Center as part of the regularly conducted Granite State Poll. The 509 adults were interviewed on April 11 and 12, with a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

C.A. Tripp, the author of a widely read book which sought to dispel popular misconceptions about homosexuality, died May 17 of cancer. He was 83.

Tripp’s book The Homosexual Matrix, a scholarly work published by McGraw-Hill in 1975, set forth new ideas about sexual attraction and sold nearly 500,000 copies.

Author and AIDS activist Larry Kramer said in an interview with The New York Times that the book was the first from a “reputable source” that “dared to speak openly of homosexuality as a healthy occurrence.”

Born Clarence Arthur Tripp in Denton, Texas, Tripp studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology and served in the Navy before immersing himself in the work of Freud during the 1940s.

Beginning in 1948, he worked with Alfred Kinsey at his Institute for Sex Research in Bloomington, Indiana, until Kinsey’s death in 1956.

He and author Lewis Gannett recently finished a biography of Lincoln that speculates that the former president was gay.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia attended a $150-per-plate dinner hosted by the Urban Family Council of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a group whose founder is suing to stop the city from recognizing same-sex partnerships.

The council said the dinner was not a fundraiser and that the ticket price would cover only the cost of the banquet, held in honor of Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Federal judges are barred from raising money for political, charitable or civic organizations, or permitting the use of the prestige of their office for that purpose.

“We just thought, ‘What better way to honor Cardinal Bevilacqua than to have a sitting Supreme Court justice up to speak?”‘ said the council’s founder, William Devlin. “It’s nice to be able to say you have a friend like Justice Scalia.”

About 125 guests were expected at the dinner at the highbrow Union League of Philadelphia. The event was closed to reporters.

The Urban Family Council opposes abortion, advocates abstinence from sex before marriage and seeks to promote two-parent families by offering training programs for young fathers. The group maintains on its Website that homosexuality is an immoral lifestyle choice, not a genetic predisposition, and that gays should be encouraged to repent and seek help to become straight.