BOSTON – A federal court has refused to dismiss a lawsuit against a group that advocates sex between men and boys brought by the parents of Jeffrey Curley.

Curley, 10, was murdered in 1997 by a member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association. Salvatore Sicari of Cambridge was convicted of first-degree murder in the case. Charles Jaynes of Brockton and Manchester, N.H., was convicted of second-degree murder and kidnapping. Both are serving life sentences.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing NAMBLA in the case, hoped to have the case dismissed on grounds material on NAMBLA’s Web site and newsletter were protected by the First Amendment.

The boy’s parents, Barbara and Robert Curley, filed a $200 million wrongful death lawsuit against NAMBLA, claiming Jaynes was incited by the group.

The Curleys had hoped to add a racketeering claim against NAMBLA, but the court denied their motion because damages for wrongful death or personal injury are not available under that charge.

The lawsuit alleges that Jaynes joined NAMBLA in the fall of 1996, read the group’s publications and Web site and “became obsessed with having sex with and raping young male children.”

“I think we’re going to win,” said Lawrence Frisoli, the Curleys’ attorney. “But I think there will be a lot of obstructionist proceedings on the part of the ACLU before the case goes to a jury.”

The ACLU’s legal director, John Reinstein, did not immediately return a phone message.

Prosecutors said the men lured the boy from his Cambridge neighborhood with the promise of a new bike, then smothered him with a gasoline-soaked rag when he resisted their sexual advances.

According to court documents, the men suffocated the boy in Cambridge and Jaynes molested him in Manchester, N.H., before stuffing the body into a concrete-filled container and dumping it in the Great Works River in South Berwick, Maine.