A transsexual woman convicted in the castration death of her husband wants a judge to reconsider her prison sentence and says her trial lawyer was more interested in book and movie rights than in defending her.

Tammy Felbaum last month filed a handwritten document from prison appealing the five- to 11-year prison sentence imposed by Butler County Judge William Shaffer.

Felbaum was convicted in a nonjury trial of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and the unauthorized practice of medicine in the February 2001 death of her husband, James Felbaum.

Prosecutors said James Felbaum, the woman’s sixth husband, died from a combination of the pain from a castration performed by his wife and the effects of a painkiller. A coroner said he choked on his own vomit.

Felbaum has maintained that her husband castrated himself as a sign of devotion to her.

In the handwritten document, Felbaum said her trial lawyer, Richard E. Goldinger, failed to contact experts who could have helped her case.

She also sent the judge a document purported to be an agreement between the woman and her lawyer regarding book, movie and television rights. However, the document does not appear to be signed.

A conservative New York lawyer who fought to deny equal rights for gays and lesbians was hired for a top legal job in Florida’s Department of Children & Families.

James H.K. Bruner, former executive director of the Christian-oriented New York Family Policy Council, will be “special assistant to the general counsel” of the agency and earn $82,000 a year, DCF Secretary Jerry Regier said. Bruner must get licensed to practice law in Florida.

As the public face of the council in Albany, Bruner, 45, disrupted abortion-rights gatherings and argued that medical evidence proves “the homosexual lifestyle is unhealthy and should not be supported by the state.”

The council’s legislative agenda included opposing same-sex marriage, opposing equal rights for gays and lesbians in housing and employment and opposing schools’ efforts to end bullying and discrimination by teaching tolerance of gays and others.

Regier said Bruner’s beliefs are not far from those of many conservatives. He said Bruner will not be involved in setting DCF policy.

“He’s coming to be an attorney in the department,” Regier said.

Regier’s hiring of Bruner rankled critics of the troubled agency, who say Regier appears to be using the organization to promote a conservative moral agenda.

The debate over the approval of the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop is roiling in Kentucky, as a limited financial boycott is looming at the denomination’s largest Kentucky church, located in Harrods Creek.

Still other Episcopalians in Louisville hail the Aug. 5 election of the Rev. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire as a milestone in the denomination’s outreach to gays and lesbians.

The debate that is taking place is in contrast to the large majority of Kentucky Episcopalians who supported Robinson at the church General Convention. There, both of the state’s bishops and all but one delegate voted in favor of Robinson.

The Rev. Robert Jennings, pastor of St. Francis in the Fields in Harrods Creek, Kentucky, said, “What I’m hearing here at St. Francis (is) the sense of not being represented.” “It’s not just a case of sore losers.”

The church’s governing body voted Aug. 11 to allow individual members to specify that no portion of their offerings go to the Diocese of Kentucky and the national church. More than 100 members — out of a pledge base of 550 — have sent notice they plan to withhold money from the diocese and national church, Jennings said. St. Francis contributes 11 percent of the diocese’s total annual revenue.

“There was a lot of dialogue that should have taken place that didn’t,” said chruch member Vivian Ruth Sawyer, who is considering limiting her contributions.

Jennings said he received more than 200 phone calls and e-mails from parishioners upset about the votes in favor of Robinson.

Police in New Orleans will seek hate-crime charges against a suspect arrested in the stabbing of a Pennsylvania man during last weekend’s Southern Decadence festival.

Authorities are not sure if the victim of the Aug. 30 stabbing — a 53-year-old man from Eddystone, Pa. — was in New Orleans for the festival, celebrated primarily by gay men.

But investigators alleged on Aug. 31 that they had learned Tod W. Martinek, also 53, had gone to the French Quarter with the specific intent of injuring or killing a festival participant.

The victim, whose name was not released, was hospitalized in stable condition and his wound was not believed to be life-threatening, police Capt. Marlon Defillo said.

Southern Decadence, which occurs annually on Labor Day Weekend, is renowned internationally among gay men and attracts thousands of revelers.

This year it also attracted protesters — a Christian group which marched on the festival Aug. 29, denouncing homosexuality as a sin.

The stabbing victim was attacked from behind without provocation, authorities said.

Witnesses summoned police, who chased down Martinek several blocks away and recovered a five-inch knife. He was booked with attempted first-degree murder and a hate crime.

Conviction of a hate crime adds up to 10 years of hard prison labor in addition to the penalty for the initial charge. Conviction of first-degree murder carries a life sentence in Louisiana.

Mounted police escorted more than 200 Christian protesters who marched through New Orleans’ French Quarter the night of Aug. 29 to demand an end to the annual gay festival known as Southern Decadence.

The protesters chanted “Hallelujah” and held signs reading “Homosexuality Is Sin” as they passed thousands of gay men celebrating the festival’s 32nd year. Along their route, the protesters were booed and heckled by gay and straight men and women who were drinking on Bourbon Street.

The Rev. Grant E. Storms, an organizer of the protest, had predicted he would have about 1,000 Christians marching behind him, but police said there were no more than 300. Storms has demanded that the city shut down the festival because last year he videotaped many violations of the city’s indecency laws: men exposing themselves, publicly urinating and performing sex acts.

The festival’s organizers have acknowledged lewd acts occur in public. This year they posted and handed out fliers informing visitors that Louisiana has passed a new, tougher indecency law. The law was passed after Storms gave copies of his videotapes to state legislators.

The new law makes it a crime to have sex in public to intentionally attract a crowd; violators can get a 10-day jail sentence.

Festival organizers said they expected about 110,000 visitors.

Portland, Oregon, Police Chief Mark Kroeker told Mayor Vera Katz Aug. 29 that he will resign, saying the action was requested “through intermediaries” he would not identify.

He said in a letter that he would leave Oct. 17 but felt the decision is not in Portland’s interests.

The move closely follows a report critical of police shootings and unhappiness, especially in the black community, over his suspension of an officer who shot an unarmed black woman last May. Black leaders thought the officer, Scott McCollister, should have been fired.

In 2000, Katz briefly considered firing Kroeker after a newspaper published antigay statements made 10 years before in Los Angeles.