SANTA ANA, California (AP) – A man was sentenced March 24 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing a retired immigration agent who was found with a slur against gays written on his back.

Gregory Michael Pisarcik was convicted of first-degree murder last November for the 2002 slaying of 53-year-old Narciso Leggs Jr.

Leggs, who was gay, was found in his apartment in an unincorporated area of Santa Ana after his landlord called police because he hadn’t seen Leggs in several days.

Leggs’ head had been smashed with a champagne bottle and the apartment was ransacked, prosecutors said.

The victim’s ears had been cut off with scissors in what might have been an act of rage after the attacker was unable to find money, Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy said.

“You’re an angry young man for a variety of reasons,” Orange County Superior Court Judge Frank Fasel told Pisarcik at the sentencing.

Leggs’ sister, Paula McClain, told the judge her brother would have helped Pisarcik by giving him money – if robbery was the motive.

“If Mr. Pisarcik had really known what kind of person my brother Narciso was, he could not have been able to murder my brother,” she testified.

Leggs had worked for the agency then known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service for about 22 years and had been retired about five years when he was killed. He had started a limousine business using his Lincoln Continental and a Rolls-Royce.

“Whether my brother was gay or straight, my brother projected a very useful, hardworking and positive life,” McClain said. “He never judged others.”

Pisarcik made no statements during the sentencing hearing.

Pisarcik told authorities he had been raped by a man when he was 12 and had taken drugs for years to help ease the painful memories of that incident, according to his probation report.

ASHLAND, Ky. (AP) – An eastern Kentucky high school student is appealing a ruling by a federal judge that supported requiring anti-harassment training in his school district.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge David Bunning said that students could not choose to “opt-out” of the training, which is aimed at combating harassment based on “actual or perceived sexual orientation.”

The training sessions were part of a settlement in 2004 of a three-year dispute between the Boyd County school district and a now-defunct gay rights group that wanted recognition as an extracurricular group.

The student, Timothy Allen Morrison II, his parents and two other parents sued the Board of Education over that requirement, which penalized students with an unexcused absence if they did not attend the training.

An Arizona-based Christian legal group, the Alliance Defense Fund, filed the appeal to the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of Morrison.

“The school district is attempting to change the beliefs of students without their parents’ consent,” said Kevin Theriot, a Kansas-based lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund.

Bunning ruled in February that the training is “rationally related to a legitimate educational goal, namely to maintain a safe environment.”

The American Civil Liberties Union had joined the case in support of the school district.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – The Minneapolis fire chief was put on paid leave March 22.

Fire Chief Bonnie Bleskachek was sued last week by a female fire captain, who’s also a former domestic partner of Bleskachek’s.

The captain accused Bleskachek of interfering with her career.

A city spokesperson said the paid leave is standard procedure for Fire Department employees who are the subject of human resources investigations.

Bleskachek will remain on paid leave pending the outcome of the internal investigation. An outside firm has been retained to conduct the investigation.

Bleskachek is believed to be one of the only openly gay fire chiefs in the nation, and is the first woman to lead a professional fire department in Minnesota.

SAVANNAH, Mo. (AP) – A children’s book about two male penguins that raise a baby penguin has been moved to the nonfiction section of two public library branches after parents complained it had homosexual undertones.

The illustrated book, And Tango Makes Three, is based on a true story of two male penguins, named Roy and Silo, who adopted an abandoned egg at New York City’s Central Park Zoo in the late 1990s.

The book, written by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, was moved from the children’s section at two Rolling Hills’ Consolidated Library branches in Savannah and St. Joseph in northwest Missouri.

Two parents had expressed concerns about the book.

Barbara Read, the Rolling Hills’ director, said experts report that adoptions aren’t unusual in the penguin world. However, moving the book to the nonfiction section would decrease the chance that it would “blindside” readers, she said.

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) – An HIV-positive man accused of biting a police officer was sentenced to at least two years in prison after pleading guilty to assault.

In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors dropped charges of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill against Eric Booker, 40. Still, prosecutors accused Booker of purposely biting Greensboro police officer David Brendle hoping to kill him, prosecutors said. Booker denied that.

Booker was arrested and put in the back seat of a police cruiser after he threatened to bite and infect his roommate, prosecutors said. The officers stopped the car after Booker damaged a back window by slamming his head into it, and Booker bit Brendle’s left wrist as the officer tried to restrain him, prosecutors said.

Booker argued that he bit Brendle accidentally during a struggle.

Prosecutors said Brendle has not tested positive for HIV.

GROVE, Okla. (AP) – A Wyandotte teenager who alleges he was attacked by a fellow student because he is gay has filed a tort claim against the Grove school district.

The district of about 2,300 students failed to provide a safe environment for Michale D. Bullis, thereby creating a hostile climate that led to his assault, his attorney, Erik Johnson, alleges.

Bullis was injured in an attack by another student Nov. 8 in the Grove High School cafeteria, the claim alleges. The student said he attacked Bullis because he is gay, according to the claim, which seeks $10,000 in damages.

Bullis, a National Honor Society student, alleges the attack was part of “systematic harassment and bullying” which resulted in his transfer to the Grove Alternative School.

Superintendent Tom Steen said the claim was turned over to the school’s attorney. School Board president Annie Maxon said she hadn’t seen the claim and could not comment.

According to a Grove police report, Bullis was walking down an aisle when a 16-year-old boy stepped out from a line of students and hit Bullis in the mouth and nose, causing him to fall. One of Bullis’ upper teeth was knocked loose, and his bottom lip cut.

“I got tired of it, and I got up and hit him,” Bullis said in the report.

Both students were suspended from school.

Bullis’ claim also states the school administration refused to acknowledge the hostile environment and refused to take steps to address the physical safety needs of gay and lesbian students.

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. (AP) – For the third time, a challenge has been filed against a lesbian couple whose marriage certificate was issued by the Cherokee Nation.

Tribal court administrator Lisa Fields filed a petition for declaratory judgment from the tribe’s Judicial Appeals Tribunal.

The tribunal hasn’t set a hearing, but the couple’s lawyer said she will file a motion to dismiss the petition.

Fields’ suit is the third to be brought before the tribunal challenging the marriage of tribal citizens Kathy E. Reynolds and Dawn McKinley.

The Owasso couple filed for and received a marriage certificate May 13, 2004, and were subsequently married in Tulsa. They have not attempted to file the marriage certificate in tribal registers, even though the two previous challenges were dismissed.

The trio of tribal justices have tossed the earlier cases, ruling that the parties who filed them – the Tribal Council’s attorney, who was acting as a private individual, and Tribal Council members – had no standing to petition the court about the matter because they could not prove that they would be harmed if the marriage was recognized.

Fields said in her petition that she wants guidance from the court on how to direct her court clerk to treat the marriage certificate that was granted to Reynolds and McKinley.

Fields claims that she would be violating the Cherokee Constitution and her sworn duties if she allows the couple’s certificate to be filed. Her attorney, John Ghostbear, wants the tribunal to hear the merits of the case based on the potential harm to Fields if Reynolds and McKinley file their certificate.

“This is the official record keeper who is saying she doesn’t know what to do with this” certificate if Reynolds and McKinley try to file it, he said.

Fields’ petition contends that Cherokee laws never intended to recognize marriage between two people of the same gender.

The tribal council clarified the tribe’s marriage laws on gender after the couple’s certificate was issued in 2004.

HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A state representative says emotional “dysfunctions” and psychological issues make gays and lesbians unfit as adoptive parents.

State Rep. Debra Maggart, R-Hendersonville, made the comments in an e-mail exchange with a Vanderbilt graduate student who sent letters to 20 legislators to urge them not to support any bill that would prohibit gays and lesbians from adopting children in foster care.

Maggart voted for a bill to ban adoptions by same-sex couples last year, but the bill was rejected in a House committee by an 11-9 vote.

“Research shows that most homosexual couples have numerous emotional dysfunctions and psychological issues that may not be healthy for children,” Maggart wrote in the e-mail.

The student who sent the letter, Sara Dykstra, said she was shocked by the response and shared it with Jerry Jones, publisher of Out and About Nashville, a newspaper for the GLBT community. Jones posted an article on the newspaper’s Web site, www.outandaboutnashville.com, about the lawmaker’s response.

“It’s horrendous that it had to come across this way,” said Chris Sanders, board spokesperson for the Tennessee Equality Project, adding that Maggart’s comments had galvanized the GLBT community.

Maggart said she’s received a number of constituent e-mails she called disgusting and vulgar.

“I don’t wish to discriminate against anyone, but [gays and lesbians] have issues. That’s my opinion,” she said.

Rep. John DeBerry, a Memphis Democrat who is chair of the House Children and Family Affairs Committee, thinks that gays and lesbians may have reason to be alert.

“Somewhere along the line, [these] bills will be amended,” DeBerry said. “It’s such a passionate issue that it is not going to go away.”

Bill Maier, vice president and psychologist-in-residence at Focus on the Family, a national conservative group, said that Maggart’s statement is in line with existing research.

“Thirty years of evidence shows that children do best when they are raised by mothers and fathers,” he said.

In a 2001 review of published research, sociologists Judith Stacey of New York University and Timothy J. Biblarz of the University of Southern California found that children of gay and lesbian parents are different in some ways from children raised in heterosexual households.

These differences include higher incidences of gender confusion and more sexual experimentation – including experimentation with homosexuality.

Stacey said such differences are relatively trivial and are no reason to prevent gays and lesbians from being parents.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Rep. Mark Kennedy said he will push an amendment aimed at curtailing anti-gay protests held at military funerals.

Under the amendment, the Defense Department could not spend money to issue a permit authorizing a demonstration at a military funeral held at a Defense Department or Veterans Affairs cemetery.

Because it is limited to federal property, Kennedy’s amendment would not have prevented the protest last month at Cpl. Andrew Kemple’s funeral in Anoka, Minn., which generated widespread revulsion in the state.

But Kennedy, a Minnesota Republican who is running for Senate, said his amendment was inspired by that protest.

“What should have been an occasion for friends and loved ones of Corporal Kemple to solemnly share fond memories and condolences about his faithful service to his country was instead perverted by a hateful display,” he said in a statement announcing the amendment.

“Unfortunately, this shameful incident in my district is not an isolated one: This scene has been repeated again and again at the funerals of fallen servicemen and women across the country.”

Kemple’s funeral was picketed by a small group from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., which has demonstrated at soldier funerals across the country, making the claim that God is killing U.S. soldiers who fight for a country that tolerates homosexuality.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, who led the protest in Anoka, said she welcomed the amendment.

“The eyes of the world are going to watch,” she said, “while this nation, because of some words on some signs on a public street, dismantles the First Amendment, giving away the crowning jewel of all our liberty. That’s what this nation deserves.”

Kennedy is also co-sponsoring legislation by Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., that would restrict protests at funerals at national cemeteries for 60 minutes before or after a funeral, and require they be held at least 500 feet away.

More than a dozen other states have passed or are considering legislation limiting funeral protests in response to the Kansas group. Phelps-Roper has said that group members won’t protest for now in states with such laws, but that they’re considering legal challenges to them.