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tionship with a girl.
• Thirty-three-year-old Tonya Marie Drueppel, of Sioux Falls, appeared briefly Thursday in Minnehaha Court on three counts of 4th-degree rape and two counts of sexual contact with a child under 16.
• The investigation started Jan. 22 when police received a referral from the Department of Social Services.
• According to a court document, her relationship with the 14-year-old started in 2012 when Drueppel was an Axtell Park Middle School teacher.
• The district says she was with the district from 2009 through the end of the last school year.
• Drueppel is being held on $500,000 cash bond.
• The defense office representing her did not comment.
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• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- A measure that sought to protect clergy members who refuse to take part in gay marriages was rejected Thursday by a South Dakota legislative committee after opponents said the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom already gives those church leaders the protections.
• The Judiciary Committee voted 4-3 to kill a bill that would have prevented clergy from being forced to perform marriages that violate their religious beliefs or consciences. It also sought to prevent clergy and other church officials from being sued or charged with crimes if they refused to take part in such weddings.
• The bill's main sponsor, Sen. Ernie Otten, R-Tea, said the state's constitution and laws ban gay marriage, but courts may overturn that ban and force South Dakota churches to perform same-sex marriages.
• The proposal would have required tolerance of clergy members who do not believe in same-sex marriage, Otten said.
• "This bill does not force or impose an agenda on anyone," Otten said. "What the bill does, however, is protect South Dakota from anyone trying to impose his or her view on people by using legal or financial threats."
• Karl Kroger, a United Methodist minister from Piedmont, said the proposal was unneeded because the federal and state constitutions already protect clergy members' rights to refuse to take part in same-sex weddings or other events that violate their religious beliefs.
• "I'm here primarily to give one of the messages that was predominantly given to people by the angels, and that is: 'Do not be afraid,' " Kroger said.

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