More California voters now support allowing same-sex marriage than oppose it, according to a new poll released Wednesday.

The results mark the first time in over three decades of polling that more California voters have approved of extending marriage to gay couples than have disapproved, said Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo. The survey of 1,052 registered voters was conducted over the phone.

"I would say this is a historic turning point or milestone," DiCamillo said. "We have speculated in the past there would be some time in the future when a majority would support same-sex marriage. Well, the lines have crossed."

The poll found that 51 percent of respondents backed legalizing same-sex marriage and 42 percent opposed it, DiCamillo said.

In 2006, when participants were asked, "Do you approve or disapprove of California allowing homosexuals to marry members of their own sex?" 44 percent said they approved and 50 percent objected. In 1977, the first year Field posted the question to voters, 28 percent approved and 59 percent were opposed.

The poll was conducted from May 17 to May 26 in the days after the California Supreme Court handed down its historic ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in the nation's most populous state. A smaller percentage of respondants_ 48 percent — said they agreed with the court's decision and 46 percent disagreed.

Anti-abortion activists flooded into Washington Tuesday to protest against the Supreme Court's legalization of abortion in the United States on the 35th anniversary of its landmark Roe versus Wade decision.

The annual "March for Life" rally was due to begin at noon (1700 GMT) on the sprawling National Mall and take protesters past the Capitol, the seat of the US legislature, to the Supreme Court, where on January 22, 1973, the country's highest justices voted seven to two that a state law in Texas that banned abortion, except to save a woman's life, was unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court decision, enshrined as "Roe v. Wade" for the key figures in the case, gave the United States some of the least restrictive abortion laws in the world and galvanized religious opposition groups into action against it.

On the eve of the march, anti-abortion activists crowded into the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception at Catholic University in Washington to pray for abortion to be banned, officials at the university said.

While local media reported that thousands had attended the all-night vigil, university officials were still counting heads on Tuesday morning, spokeswoman Jackie Hayes said.

More than 1,000 "pro-life" advocates from around the United States spent the night sleeping on floors at the university ahead of the march, the school's website said.

The Reverend David O'Connell, president of Catholic University, attended a breakfast "with President George W. Bush and pro-life leaders" at the White House Tuesday morning, the website added.

Norma McCorvey -- originally given the pseudonym "Jane Roe" for the landmark case -- was due to hold an anti-abortion news conference alongside Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul in Washington ahead of the march.

McCorvey was first brought before a court in Dallas, Texas, in 1970 by two women lawyers seeking the right for the then-homeless, 22-year-old single mother to terminate her third pregnancy.

The defendant was Henry Wade, the district attorney representing the state of Texas.

The Texas court's ruling favored "Roe," but it still did not strike down Texas's state laws banning abortion.

So that by the time the case came to the Supreme Court and its decision in favor of universal abortion rights nationwide was handed down, McCorvey had already had her third child, which she put up for adoption.

Years later, she converted to Catholicism and became an anti-abortion activist.

"I believe that I was used and abused by the court system in America. Instead of helping women in Roe v. Wade, I brought destruction to me and millions of women throughout the nation," McCorvey told lawmakers in 2005.

Roe versus Wade is seen as increasingly vulnerable to being overturned, as the court has turned more conservative with recent appointments and it requires only five of the nine Supreme Court judges to vote in favor of changing the decision to permit the 50 states to set their own abortion bans.

In April, the high court took the first step in rolling back abortion rights in more than a generation by banning a controversial late-term termination procedure.

Public opinion has remained fairly constant over the years with some 25 percent of Americans believing abortion should be available on demand, 25 percent saying that it should be totally banned, an 50 percent holding that it should be legal but restricted.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will hear arguments Monday whether there is merit to a lawsuit by the family of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old activist from Olympia killed by a bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in 2003. The defendant in the case is Caterpillar, which made the D9 bulldozer involved in her death.

The case, Corrie et al. v. Caterpillar, was filed in Seattle in 2005, but a district court dismissed it. After this hearing, the appeals court will rule whether the suit should be dismissed or sent back to the lower court.

Cindy and Craig Corrie, the woman's parents, allege Caterpillar violated human rights and committed war crimes by knowingly selling its equipment to the Israeli army, which used the bulldozers to raze Palestinian homes and endanger people. Rachel Corrie was run over by a bulldozer driven by an Israeli soldier as she tried to block a home from demolition.

"We are essentially arguing that you cannot knowingly provide substantial assistance — the means to commit war crimes, which is essentially what Caterpillar has done here," said Maria LaHood, with the Center for Constitutional Rights, on the Corries' legal team.

Israel said the death was an accident, according to The Associated Press. Caterpillar has said in the past that it can't be held responsible for how its bulldozers are used.

On Friday, a Caterpillar spokeswoman declined to comment on the development.

The Corries seek monetary damages in the civil suit, and they want to stop Caterpillar from selling its products to groups they say violate human rights. Four Palestinian families whose homes were bulldozed are also plaintiffs.

"We hope that this decision would mean eventually that Caterpillar shouldn't sell D9 bulldozers to Israel while they are using them to commit human-rights violations," LaHood said.

The death of The Evergreen State College student polarized political camps about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is not the first time corporations have been tried or held liable for their involvement in alleged human-rights violations or war crimes, LaHood said.

Three judges will hear arguments, and a ruling could take a few months, LaHood said.

Human Rights Watch claimed Saturday that the US, Kenya, and Ethiopia are cooperating with the transitional government of Somalia to secretly detain people who have fled the recent conflict there. HRW deputy Africa director Georgette Gagnon said: "Each of these governments has played a shameful role in mistreating people fleeing a war zone. Kenya has secretly expelled people, the Ethiopians have caused dozens to ‘disappear,' and US security agents have routinely interrogated people held incommunicado."

Predominantly-Islamic Somalia has endured a lengthy civil war and several rounds of failed peace talks since the collapse of its last civil government in 1991.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Tuesday criticized the poor human rights records of several US allies and denounced the genocide in Darfur while announcing the publication of the 2006 US State Department Country Reports on human rights. Despite the fact that Afghanistan and Iraq have received hundreds of millions of dollars in US aid for democracy and human rights programs, the reports indicate that widespread sectarian violence, weak central administrations and abuses of authority have thwarted respect for rights in those countries. Among the other countries with poor reports in the annual DOS exercise were North Korea, Pakistan, Cuba , Venezuela, and Myanmar.

In addition to Afghanistan and Iraq, the reports also criticized Russia and China, with which the US has recently worked in pressuring Iran and North Korea to abandon their nuclear programs. The State Department reports criticized those countries' records of cracking down on dissent and investigating the killings of government critics.

United Nations human rights experts Friday condemned a proposed Nigerian law banning gay marriage and tightening laws criminalizing homosexuality in the country. While engaging in homosexual acts in Nigeria is already punishable by death by stoning, the UN experts said the new law, which authorizes a maximum five-year sentence for any person found to be openly gay, will make persons engaging in, or perceived to be engaging in, same sex relationships in Nigeria more susceptible to arbitrary arrests, detention, torture and ill-treatment and expose them even more to violence and attacks on their dignity.

They also said the law would violate Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifying that all human beings are “born equal in dignity and rights.” Friday's statement was jointly issued by Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Human Rights Defenders Hina Jilani; Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance Doudou Diène; Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences Yakin Ertürk; and Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health Paul Hunt.

Some speculate that the Nigerian law, which could pass both the House and Senate by the end of March, is a response to a civil unions law enacted by South Africa last November. With that legislation, South Africa became the first African nation to recognize same-sex unions.

BANGOR (Feb 19): A Native American group comprised of prison inmates is suing Maine State Prison Warden Jeffrey Merrill, among other prison officials, for refusing to permit the group reasonable accommodations to practice its religion.

The group, Sacred Feather, has 27 members and was formed in December 1998. It filed a similar lawsuit against Merrill in May 2003, but the case was dismissed seven months later in December of that year. According to the most recent lawsuit, the 2003 case was dismissed and attorneys for the Maine Department of Corrections and Sacred Feather entered into a settlement agreement, which expired, as stipulated, on Dec. 23, 2005.

Since that time, Sacred Feather alleges it has attempted to retain "religious freedom" and "quality of religious practices" afforded other religious faith inmate groups, to no avail.

One of the things that has not been in keeping with fair treatment, according to Sacred Feather, has been the requirement that smudging ceremonies take place in a location described as a high-traffic area of the prison grounds.

In a smudging ceremony, sacred tobacco and sweet grass are burned in a ceremonial smudge bowl. Then, as group members stand in a circle in prayer, the resulting smoke is blown onto each member's face and body with an eagle feather.

Holding the smudging ceremony between buildings in a heavily traveled part of the prison's outdoor yard results in "many onlookers and derogatory comments made both from passing non-Native American inmates and from prison guards," claims Sacred Feather.

In the court document, Sacred Feather states that its Native American members are entitled to practice their religion with dignity and with accommodations equal to those afforded to Catholic and Protestant groups. Sacred Feather alleges that continues to not be the case at Maine State Prison.

Sacred Feather points to the prison's provision of a chapel where Catholics and Protestants can privately practice their religions and of office space and funds to purchase office supplies and other items needed to practice their religious faith.

"Catholics are provided weekly services, their own priest, inmate clerks and the ability to take Communion every week," states the court document. "Candles are burned during the weekly services, and holidays of special religious significance, like Christmas, Easter and Ash Wednesday, are also fully observed and accommodated at the prison."

Sacred Feather also alleges that accommodations are provided for Protestant Kairos groups in the prison but not for the Native American group. One example cited is the prison's provision of a space for the inmate Protestant group and an outside Protestant group to conduct their Kairos ceremony, for which the prison also provides, without charge, extra guards to monitor the large group.

Sacred Feather alleges that prison officials have failed to provide religious items agreed to when the group first formed in 1998, including a medicine bag, drums, eagle feathers, sweet grass, a sacred pipe, tobacco ties, sage, cedar and a smudge bowl.

Sacred Feather further alleges that prison officials have canceled smudging ceremonies more than 18 times since 2003 and have not provided a shelter for smudging ceremonies held in inclement weather.

"Reasons for the cancellations range from 'No officers are available' or 'We are not feeling like it,'" states Sacred Feather in the court document.

And despite earlier agreeing to continue to communicate about whether it is possible to erect a sweat lodge for sweat lodge ceremonies, prison officials have been reluctant to communicate about resolving the issue, alleges Sacred Feather.

"Prison officials have also denied the plaintiffs powwows, ceremonial foods and ceremonial music," states Sacred Feather in the court document. "Though the defendants plan, prepare and pay for ceremonial foods of Christian religions at major Christian holidays, no such accommodation is made for Native American festivals or holy days."

Sacred Feather is demanding that the court find in its favor in terms of it being entitled to the same level of accommodation and dignity as inmates practicing Christian religions.

Sacred Feather is seeking the right to hold twice-weekly smudging ceremonies and twice-monthly pipe ceremonies, in a location that provides privacy and does not subject the ceremonies to cancellation due to inclement weather. It also seeks permission to construct a sweat lodge, and to hold sweat-lodge ceremonies at least monthly.

Sacred Feather also seeks to have its members be allowed to retain religious items in their prison cells in order to practice their religion daily, as well as entitlement to a proportionate share of the funds provided to other religious groups at the prison.

Along with requiring that Merrill issue a directive to his staff prohibiting any form of retaliation against members of the group, Sacred Feather also asks the court to issue an order permanently prohibiting prison officials from engaging in any of the conduct alleged in the complaint.

In addition to costs and fees associated with filing the lawsuit, Sacred Feather also seeks unspecified damages to compensate for the violation of its constitutional rights, and asks that the court award damages in an amount Sacred Feather would have received for religious purposes dating back to Dec. 16, 1998, equivalent to the amounts received by the other religious prison groups during that same period.