Colorado

Gay rights supporters protest Christian group

About 500 people braved cold temperatures and light snow Sunday to protest a conservative Christian group’s campaign against gay rights and same-sex marriage.

The protesters gathered in front of the Focus on the Family campus, holding rainbow flags, multicolored balloons and signs reading “God Loves Justice” and “Love Thy Neighbor.”

Focus on the Family, founded and led by James Dobson, has vigorously opposed gay rights and same-sex marriages, urging voters during last year’s election to vote for President Bush and in favor of same-sex marriage bans that passed in 11 states.

“We are here to say, Jim, we love you enough to stop you from doing the damage you are doing to families across the nation,” said Mel White, executive director of Soulforce, a national interfaith organization that supports gay rights.

Thomas Minnery, the group’s director of public policy, said he watched the rally from inside the headquarters. He denied that Focus delivers a message of hate but reiterated the organization’s belief that homosexuality violates the Scriptures.

Dobson was not at the headquarters Sunday, Minnery said.

New Jersey

Boy Scout missing after falling from boat

Rescue teams searched waters along the southern New Jersey coast on Sunday for the body of a Boy Scout who fell off a whale watching boat.

Rough conditions forced police and Coast Guard boats to suspend the search around midday, but investigators did find a piece of clothing on the propeller that might have belonged to the boy, police said.

The search was expected to continue today.

Nicholas Johs, 14, of Staten Island, N.Y., fell Saturday after he and several other troop members were jumping up and down in the front of the boat in time with the waves, witnesses told police.

One of the passengers threw Johs a life preserver, but the youth could not reach it. Another passenger dove into the 49-degree water to try and rescue him, but had to turn back. Troop members were not wearing life vests, police said.

California

Physicist who linked music to thinking dies

Gordon Shaw, the physicist whose research on classical music’s effect on the brain produced an often-quoted study that showed listening to Mozart raises a person’s IQ, has died. He was 72.

Shaw died of kidney cancer Tuesday at his home, according to his family. He gained national attention in 1993 when he reported that a group of college students who listened to Mozart’s “Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major” saw their IQs increase substantially, if only temporarily.

The University of California at Irvine researcher never cared for the media attention his work generated, however, complaining that headlines like “Mozart’s Music Makes You Smarter” oversimplified his studies.

“It is not that the Mozart will make you permanently smarter,” Shaw told the Los Angeles Times in 1993. Hearing such music, he speculated, might only provide “a warmup exercise” for parts of the brain that perform high levels of abstract thinking.

Such reports on his work also led to a backlash in the academic community when other scientists reported they could not duplicate the results uncovered by Shaw.

Chicago

Survey: Teens know risks but tan anyway

If the latest tanning survey is any indication, 17-year-old Lindsey Vitez is a totally typical teen.

“I hate looking deathly pale,” said Vitez, who seeks a tan year-round, bronzing at tanning salons in cool months and hanging out by the pool or beach in summertime, using lotion to attract the sun, not protect against skin cancer.

The American Academy of Dermatology found similar attitudes in a nationwide survey of 505 youngsters aged 12 to 17 years.

Almost 80 percent said they knew tanning can be dangerous, and that childhood sunburns increase risks for skin cancer, the survey released today found. Yet 66 percent said people look better with a tan, nearly half said tans look healthier, and 60 percent said they got sunburned last summer.

Girls were more likely than boys to wear sunscreen — 53 percent versus 33 percent — and to say they were at least somewhat careful about protecting themselves from the sun — 59 percent compared with 36 percent.

Arizona

Navajo president vetoes same-sex marriage ban

The president of the Navajo Nation vetoed a measure Sunday that would have banned same-sex marriage on the Indian reservation.

The Tribal Council voted unanimously last month to pass legislation that restricts a recognized union to a relationship between a man and a woman, and prohibits plural marriages as well as marriages between close relatives.

Supporters said the goal was to promote Navajo family values and preserve the sanctity of marriage.

President Joe Shirley Jr. said in a statement released Sunday that he strongly supports family stability but the proposed measure said nothing about domestic violence, sexual assault and gangs on the Navajo Nation — problems that are rampant.

Shirley said the measure also goes against the Navajo teaching of nondiscrimination and doing no psychological or physical harm to others.

However, Shirley said if members of the tribe wanted to take a position for or against same-sex unions, he would support their decision to do so through an initiative rather than a Tribal Council vote.