Governor Gray Davis signed a bill Sept. 8 that will protect foster children in California from discrimination based on a range of factors, including sexual orientation, gender identity and HIV/AIDS status. The bill, AB 458 by Assemblymember Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), will prohibit discrimination and harassment against foster children and caretakers. It also assures that foster parents and staff will receive information on the nondiscrimination requirement in the course of existing training hours.

“This bill will ensure that at-risk youth, including [GLBT] youth, are better protected while in California’s foster care system,” said Geoffrey Kors, Equality California Executive Director. “We have an obligation to protect our most vulnerable foster children from harassment and discrimination. Equality California commends Assemblymember Chu for her dedication and perseverance in passing this important civil rights measure.”

Attempting to reduce AIDS and other diseases spread through needle sharing, the California State Assembly approved a bill that would allow pharmacies to sell up to 30 hypodermic needles to an adult without a prescription.

The 41-31 vote sent the measure by Sen. John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) back to the Senate for consideration of Assembly amendments.

The legislation is aimed at reducing the sharing of needles by drug addicts, which contributes to the spread of AIDS, hepatitis C and other blood-borne diseases.

It covers pharmacies that agree to participate with state and local health officials in evaluating the program, which would be phased out at the end of 2007 unless extended by lawmakers.

Assemblymember Jay La Suer (R-La Mesa) said the bill would send a “terrible message,” that it’s “OK to use drugs as long as you have a clean needle.”

But Assemblymember Joe Nation (D-San Rafael) noted that the bill was modeled after laws already in effect in 44 other states.

A lawsuit over diversity education in the Novato Unified School District was dropped, ending nearly two years of litigation.

The lawsuit, dropped on Sept. 4, claimed the school district in Novato, California, and Pleasant Valley School violated family rights by failing to excuse seven elementary school students from a diversity program called “Cootie Shots: Theatrical Inoculations Against Bigotry.”

The live show deals with stereotypes, including negative attitudes toward gays and lesbians, with short plays, songs and poems and is performed by Fringe Benefits, an educational theater company from Los Angeles.

The parents who sued alleged that they had signed opt-out forms excusing their children from such presentations at the beginning of the year.

Novato Superintendent Jan LaTorr-Derby, who succeeded former Superintendent John Bernard in July, said she was relieved.

LaTorr-Derby said the district has created a “positive parent permission” form and “tightened up our systems.”

“So now we have a written documentation and it’s on the computer so every teacher has a list of their children and what they can participate in and what they cannot participate in,” she said.

U.S. Rep. Mark Foley said Sept. 5 he would drop out of the race for the Republican Senate nomination from Florida, telling supporters that his father’s battle with cancer would prevent him from pursuing the campaign.

Foley, first elected to Congress in 1994, said he will seek re-election to his West Palm Beach-area House seat. His decision leaves four Republican contenders vying for the seat held by Democratic presidential hopeful Bob Graham, who hasn’t said whether he will seek another term.

Foley formally announced his candidacy in July, and said at the time he had a campaign war chest of nearly $3 million.

Foley took more moderate stances on social issues such as abortion and gay rights. In May, he took the unusual step of calling a news conference to denounce a report in a South Florida alternative newspaper that he is gay.

Foley declined to answer questions about the subject, saying his sexual orientation had no bearing on his duties as a lawmaker and charged Democratic activists with trying to derail his candidacy.

Friends and students at the University of Georgia in Athens who knew Ruslan Sharipov as a student say he’s being prosecuted by the Uzbekistan government for political purposes.

Sharipov, who attended UGA as an exchange student in 1999-2000, has been jailed in Uzbekistan on charges of being gay.

Critics argue the charges were trumped up to undermine Sharipov’s work as an independent human rights activist and journalist.

“He was very passionate about his beliefs,” said Farah Omar, a university alumna and friend of Sharipov. “He was very involved at UGA, and different people who worked at the International Student Life office always talked of him doing positive things.”

Sharipov has been critical of police corruption and human rights abuses since returning to Uzbekistan.

While at UGA, Sharipov created an Asian Central Organization in 2000, said ISL coordinator Leigh Poole.

Sharipov, 25, was sentenced last month to five years in jail for having gay sex, having sex with minors and running a brothel.

Sharipov pleaded guilty and dismissed his lawyers at the trial after earlier maintaining that he was innocent and the case fabricated. But human rights and media freedom groups said Sharipov may have been tortured and forced to confess.

“I’m absolutely sure he is being tortured,” Omar said. “I urge people to petition on the web site and to write letters directly to the chancellors and president of Uzbekistan in order to get his release.”

A Christian pastor protesting an annual gay festival in New Orleans was issued a summons after scuffling with a security worker at a French Quarter bar, police said.

Police said the Rev. Grant E. Storms argued with Mark Counts, who works at the Good Fellow Bar, about whether Storms could enter the bar to videotape the goings on. Storms and Counts received summonses for battery after both accused the other of pushing. Both must appear before a municipal court judge this week.

Storms is a persistent critic of the annual Southern Decadence Festival, and led a group of about 200 fellow Christian protesters through the crowds one night. Storms has said gay men routinely expose themselves and perform sex acts in public during the festival. Last year he shot videotape and caught numerous acts of public indecently on tape.

Police said 47 people were arrested at the festival over the holiday weekend, most of them on local charges including public urination, public intoxication and indecent exposure. No one was arrested for public sex.

Unhappy with the dismissal of a pastor who performed same-sex marriages, some members of a Presbyterian church in Cincinnati, Ohio, are returning to the early Christian practice of meeting in each other’s homes.

The Rev. Stephen Van Kuiken was renounced by the Presbytery of Cincinnati in June. Shortly after that, the breakaway group formed.

“It started with people who met with each other to comfort each other after what happened June 16,” said Erna Olafson of North College Hill, a psychologist who had been a member of Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church since 1996.

“We were hurting; it was not easy,” Olafson said. “We have no anger toward the people who stayed. We still love them. But we could not be part of a church that would not sanction the marriage of people like Ken (Farmer) and Kim (Roots), people who obviously love one another.

“It was a matter of conscience.”

Because Van Kuiken was renounced by the Presbytery, he could no longer serve as minister at Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church. So he performed the Aug. 15 ceremony with Farmer and Roots at St. John’s Unitarian Church.