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When Diana Bijon asked her fianc, Michael Buday, to take her last name when they wed last year, he said yes. California said not without a court order and more than $300. So they called the ACLU/SC, which sued to equalize the treatment of men and women when they change their name on a marriage application in this state.

"If you want to set up a system to discourage couples from adopting the name of the wife, this is it," ACLU/SC legal director Mark Rosenbaum told the Los Angeles Times. Only six states explicitly allow husbands to take their wives' names when they marry.

Men must now pay court fees of more than $300 and advertise the name change in a newspaper. Women who choose to take their husband's name when they wed pay only a $50-$80 marriage license fee.

Buday, 29, and Bijon, 28, made the decision to recognize her father's importance in his life. The couple also hopes to extend the Bijon family name into another generation as an expression of her French-American ancestry.

"It's not about the money, it's about the principle of families being able to make their own decisions," said Michael. "Diana's dad has become my father figure, and I want to honor that."

"Thirty years ago many women did not have a choice to keep their own name," said Diana. "We've come a long way, and it's time to recognize men's equal rights to make important family choices."

ORANGE, Calif. - The trial of an Orange County teenager who filed a lawsuit last year against the Garden Grove Unified School District in an effort to stop discrimination and harassment of gay and lesbian students on campus concluded Tuesday.

Charlene Nguon, 18, an honor-society candidate and straight-A student, was on track to attend a competitive four-year college after graduation this June when she was singled out and unfairly disciplined by school administrators on her high school campus. She filed the lawsuit along with her mother and the Gay Straight Alliance Network.

"Charlene is the type of child every parent should be proud of," said Christine P. Sun, staff attorney for the ACLU of Southern California. "We've tried to work out this situation with the school district so it's very unfortunate that it has come to this point. Instead of derailing Charlene's academic achievements, school administrators should have done their job to ensure every student thrives regardless of their sexual orientation."

Charlene's academic plans were derailed when school officials began targeting and punishing her and her girlfriend for displaying affection on campus and ultimately forced either Charlene or her girlfriend to transfer schools midway through the second semester of their junior year. Such displays by heterosexual students were common and generally went unpunished.

"Charlene was punished for who she is and that has severe personal ramifications and has a significant long-term impact on her life," said Dan Stormer of the law firm Hadsell and Stormer, counsel in the case.

Sun said: "Not only did the school punish Charlene because she was affectionate with her girlfriend, they referred her to counseling for 'persistent public display of relationship with another girl' as if her sexual orientation was an affliction that could be cured."

Throughout the course of the eight-day trial dozens of witnesses including Charlene's family, friends, classmates and former Santiago High School principal Ben Wolf testified.

Eileen Malm, one of Charlene's sisters, testified about the hardship the school transfer and school officials' treatment of Charlene affected their family.

"I just don't understand why my girlfriend and I were not allowed to be affectionate but other couples are," Nguon said at the time the lawsuit was filed. "Most other students at Santiago are very accepting and tolerant of gay students, but the administration is a different story. We were singled out and disciplined just because we are two girls."

U.S. District Judge James V. Selna is expected to issue a decision in the next several weeks. The lawsuit seeks to create a district-wide policy and guidelines to ensure that gay and lesbian students are treated equally.

The case is being tried by Stormer, Jordan Kushner and Shawn McDonald of the law firm Latham and Watkins and Sun of the ACLU/SC.

LOS ANGELES - U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson extended a temporary restraining order to end overcrowding in the county jail system's central processing hub during a hearing Monday. He also ordered the Sheriff's Department to submit a plan to improve jail conditions in 2007 before a Jan. 11 hearing.

In legal papers filed last week, the ACLU/SC requested a preliminary injunction to ensure inmates are not packed into cells without access to regular food, water, beds, or even blankets. The ACLU of Southern California sought the hearing to expose loopholes the county has used to circumvent the Oct. 27 order.

'Tragically, the manner in which the County has implemented the TRO has subverted its intent and purpose. While for the most part appearing to be in technical compliance with the order, the County has excavated loopholes that continue to work great hardship on inmates and detainees,' the papers in the three-decades-old jails-condition lawsuit, Rutherford v. Baca, said.

Judge Pregerson did not immediately grant the ACLU/SC's request but extended the TRO for four weeks and ordered a hearing for Jan. 11. He also ordered the Sheriff's Department to present a 'long-term plan' for the year a week before the hearing and denied the department's request to put six men in cells built for four, and four men in two-man cells.

'We're pleased that Judge Pregerson extended the restraining order without allowing the increases in cell population the sheriff had requested,' said ACLU/SC staff attorney Melinda Bird.

The ACLU/SC found that since the TRO was granted on Oct. 27, inmates are being held in medical areas, which are exempt from the order, and scores of inmates are shuffled daily for weeks at a time between the Inmate Reception Center and holding cells at the jails facilities without ever being assigned regular housing.

'What we have observed indisputably violates the spirit and intent of the judge's orders,' said Bird.