MESA (AP) – A bar fight is brewing between one Scottsdale establishment and the chair of the city’s Human Relations Commission.

At issue is a ban on transgender people at Anderson’s Fifth Estate nightclub.

Michele deLaFreniere believes it’s wrong to treat GLBT people differently in Scottsdale. DeLaFreniere, 52, has lived as a woman since 2004.

DeLaFreniere filed a discrimination complaint with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office against the Old Town Scottsdale night spot.

Owner Tom Anderson acknowledges banning transgender people from the club, but he said it was the best solution he could come up with after female customers objected to having “men in dresses” using the women’s restroom.

Anderson said he couldn’t have them using the men’s restroom, because men harassed them and took their pictures.

Since he’s liable for his customers’ safety, Anderson said he had no choice but to ban transgender people from the bar. “There was no place I could put these people,” Anderson said.

While deLaFreniere charged Anderson with bigotry, Anderson said that deLaFreniere threatened to use her position with the city against him, an accusation she denies.

DeLaFreniere said Anderson rudely refused her and one of her friends entry into the club a couple of days after Thanksgiving. “He grabbed the money from my hand and said, ‘I don’t want your business or your kind here,’” she said. “That, to me, is discrimination.”

Anderson said he never told deLaFreniere that “her kind” were not welcome in his club. “That’s a dramatization she wants to make to further her cause. I don’t use that kind of language,” he said. “I don’t have a problem with [transgender people]. If that’s the way your life is going, so be it. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest.”

Anderson said his customers “felt totally threatened. I believe I made the right move to protect the women that frequent this club,” he said.

SAN FRANCISCO – A transgender prison inmate who said she was raped by her cellmate has lost her lawsuit against prison officials.

A Superior Court jury on Thursday ruled in favor of six Folsom State Prison workers whom Alexis Giraldo accused of failing to protect her from being raped. The jury deadlocked on a seventh prison worker.

Giraldo, 30, was born biologically male but takes hormones to feminize her appearance.

She had asked the court to order prison officials to create a policy to protect transgender inmates, who are currently housed with the general population. But the court dismissed the claim, saying Giraldo could not speak for other inmates and was in no danger herself because she had recently been paroled.

Giraldo was sent to Folsom for shoplifting and a parole violation in January 2006. She said prison guards ignored her complaints and returned her to the cell to be attacked again. State officials said Giraldo was in a consensual sexual relationship with the cellmate and her lawsuit was motivated by greed.

The Associated Press has a policy of not naming people alleging sexual assault. However, Giraldo has spoken out publicly and has been identified by a transgender rights organization that is advocating for her.

DES MOINES – A Des Moines lesbian couple says they’ve won their battle to be considered a family by the Greater Des Moines YMCA.

M and Sandra Patton–Imani had filed a complaint with the city’s human rights commission when their YMCA family membership was revoked because they were not considered a family. The couple said Monday they will sign an agreement with the YMCA that changes the nonprofit organization’s definition of family from a heterosexual couple to include cohabiting adults.

The city commission in February ruled the YMCA’s definition of family may violate a city ordinance that prohibits discrimination in public accommodations based on sexual orientation.

YMCA officials initially said the couple was eligible for a “member plus” program that costs the same as a family membership and allows a member to add another person to their membership plan. The city of Des Moines decided that wasn’t good enough and forced the YMCA to change its policy or lose a $102,000 federal grant.

“Changing the definition was the most important thing to us,” Sandi Patton-Imani said.

Vernon Delpesce, president and chief executive officer of the YMCA, said last week he would not discuss details of any agreement.

IOWA CITY (AP) – An Iowa City man who exposed an 11-year-old girl to HIV has been sentenced to an additional 15 years in federal prison on child pornography charges.

Matthew Powills, 44, was sentenced in 2005 to 25 years in prison on state charges of criminal transmission of HIV – the virus that causes AIDS – and two counts of second-degree sexual abuse.

The latest sentence, issued Thursday, stems from Powills’ guilty plea in 2005 to receiving and possessing child pornography, court documents show.

A federal judge ordered Powills to remain on federal supervised release for the rest of his life once the sentences are served, according to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Patrick O’Meara.

Investigators said Powills abused an 11-year-old girl several times from August 2004 until November 2004. Authorities have not disclosed whether the girl is HIV-positive.

ST. LOUIS (AP) – The former head of the state public defender’s office in St. Louis has pleaded guilty to federal charges of arranging a sham marriage to keep his boyfriend in the U.S.

STLtoday.com, the Web site for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, reported Tuesday that Eric Affholter entered the federal plea agreement Monday.

Affholter admitted in the plea that he and his boyfriend, Pedro Cerna-Rojas, recruited Affholter’s employee, Collette Lewis, to marry Cerna-Rojas in the late summer or early fall of 2004.

Lewis agreed to the arrangement, according to the plea agreement. She traveled with Affholter, Cerna-Rojas and her boyfriend, Timothy J. O’Leary to Las Vegas and married Cerna-Rojas on Dec. 20.

O’Leary was an assistant circuit attorney in St. Louis but has since resigned, as did Lewis and Affholter after news of a criminal investigation became public in May.

Immigration law allows a foreign national who marries a U.S. citizen to obtain permanent residence. But the law does not recognize same-sex marriage, nor does it allow for sponsorship of a same-sex partner.

Officials learned that Affholter and Cerna-Rojas were longtime roommates. Cerna-Rojas originally entered the U.S. on a visitor visa in 2000 and was granted a student visa later that year as he attended Webster University. That visa expired in 2004.

U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said the marriage was never consummated and Cerna-Rojas went back to living with Affholter.

CONCORD (AP) – The Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president on Thursday, even though they don’t share the same views on issues critical to gays and lesbians.

“Frankly, I don’t think there’s any major candidate that is where we in the gay community would hope they would be on our issues,” V. Gene Robinson said in a conference call with reporters. “That being said, I would say the senator has been enormously supportive of our issues. We appreciate his support for civil unions.”

The continuing repercussions from Robinson’s 2003 election as bishop of New Hampshire threaten to break up the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is part. His supporters hail him as a role model and civil rights pioneer.

He stressed that his endorsement was as an individual, not as bishop.

“I will not be speaking about the campaign from the pulpit or at any church function,” he said. “That is completely inappropriate. But as a private citizen, I will be at campaign events and help in any way that I can.”

Robinson said he hopes to persuade Obama to embrace marriage for same-sex couples. Obama supports civil unions and rights for same-sex couples, but stops short of supporting same-sex marriage.

Robinson, a registered independent and opponent of the war in Iraq, said he was drawn to Obama because of the Illinois senator’s experience with racism and discrimination, which Robinson also has experienced.

“I think it would be hard to be a person of color in this country and not be on the receiving end of that,” he said. “I think we make a mistake when we think there has to be an act of hatred from one person to another for racism to occur, where our whole culture is set up to benefit one race over another.”

SALEM (AP) – Conservative activists have argued that the domestic partnership law approved by the Oregon Legislature this year is the equivalent of allowing same-sex couples to marry.

But retired teacher Barbara Pinkerton wouldn’t agree.

Pinkerton recently broke up with her partner, and tried to remove her “ex” as a beneficiary of her state pension benefits, to no avail.

Instead, the Public Employees Retirement System Board has ruled that her former partner must retain survivor’s rights to PERS benefits.

That’s because, under the PERS board’s reasoning, Pinkerton and her partner were never legally married, and only married couples are allowed to remove a beneficiary from their state pension, after a formal divorce. Same-sex couples do not have the right to a legal divorce.

For all others – gay or straight – “once you opt for an option, you’re stuck with it,” Dave Fidanque, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, told The Statesman-Journal newspaper.

For Pinkerton, that means she’ll get lower monthly retirement checks, because some money is kept in reserve should she die before her beneficiary.

Pinkerton’s case is now on appeal to the Oregon Court of Appeals, said Brian Boyd, a spokesman for Basic Rights Oregon, the state’s leading gay rights group.

California, which has authorized domestic partnerships since 2005, is granting equal pension rights to same-sex couples, Fidanque and Boyd said.

The entire debate may be moot if a group of conservative Christians has its way. Critics are gathering signatures to put the domestic partnership law on the ballot, along with a companion law banning discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people.

If they gather enough valid signatures for the referenda, the two gay rights laws will not go into effect, pending a statewide vote in November 2008.

McLEAN (AP) – An organization that advocates therapy to convert gays has settled a lawsuit with Arlington County school officials with regard to their refusal to distribute its fliers to high school students. As a result, the group is now considering targeting its message to even younger students in middle schools.

Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, or PFOX, sued school system administrators and board members earlier this year in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, claiming that they improperly blocked their request to send out fliers to high school students.

School officials denied any discrimination. They said all outside groups are barred from distributing fliers at high schools, basically because students don’t read them. But those rules were not part of the school board’s written policy, said schools spokesperson Linda Erdos.

Last month the school board formally revised its written policy, allowing flier distribution only at middle and elementary schools.

A settlement, reached last week, specifically states that PFOX will have the same access given to other groups and can submit fliers for distribution to middle and elementary school students if it wishes, said PFOX’s lawyer, Timothy Tracey.

PFOX, based in Fairfax County, has been controversial for its support of conversion or reparative therapy, which many mental health experts say is harmful. It has also opposed sex-education curriculum in Montgomery County, Md., and other places that it believes advocate a homosexual agenda.

Tracey said Monday that PFOX is considering distributing its fliers at middle schools but has no plans to do so at elementary schools.

“It’s better to aim at a more mature audience,” Tracey said.

The fliers that PFOX had previously submitted essentially spell out the organization’s goals and beliefs and provide contact information for students with questions.

“PFOX believes that no one chooses same-sex feelings or asks for them – but ex-gays demonstrate that those with unwanted same-sex attractions can seek help and information in overcoming those feelings,” one flier states.

Erdos, who was one of the defendants named in the lawsuit, said the school system makes no judgments on the content or propriety of the information submitted by outside groups.

“If there’s anything distributed that’s upsetting to parents, they would need to address those concerns to PFOX,” Erdos said. “We would hope that organizations use discretion” in what is submitted for distribution.

SEATTLE (AP) – A transient pleaded innocent Monday to first-degree murder in an ax attack on former radio talk show host Mike Webb.

Scott Brian White, 28, who previously lived for a time with Webb but was in a homeless encampment when he was arrested, remained in custody with bail continued at $1 million after a brief appearance in King County Superior Court. If convicted, he would face a standard sentencing range of 22 to nearly 29 years in prison.

Webb, 51, an outspoken liberal and gay rights advocate, was last seen on April 13 and was reported missing on May 14. His remains were found on June 28 by a property manager in a basement crawl space of his rented house.

An autopsy showed he had been stabbed five times in the shoulder and chest, had been hit five times in the face with an ax or similar weapon, and had a fractured skull.

In filing the charge Friday, prosecutors wrote that White admitted after he was arrested on July 18 that he killed Webb with an ax and hid the body.

White and Webb met in November and lived together for a time, according to court filings. No motive was listed, but police had evidence that White stole a car and money from Webb and had pawned several electronic items from his home, prosecutors wrote.

John McMullen, a friend of Webb, has said he believed Webb offered to help get White off drugs.

Webb hosted a late night talk show on Seattle’s KIRO Radio for 10 years before being fired in December 2005, shortly after he was charged with insurance fraud involving a car wreck. He was convicted of insurance fraud in February, sentenced to 240 hours of community service and fined

$1,000.