BERKELEY (AP) – A council of the United Methodist Church has decided to allow a transgender minister to retain his job, but it stopped short of addressing whether a change of gender violates the denomination’s rules.

At a session over the weekend in San Francisco, the United Methodist Judicial Council considered whether to remove the Rev. Drew Phoenix from his post. The council allowed Phoenix to stay on the job, referring to a church policy stating that a clergyperson in good standing cannot be terminated unless there has been administrative or judicial action, according to the ruling, posted on the church’s Web site.

“The adjective placed in front of the noun ‘clergyperson’ does not matter,” the council ruled. “What matters is that clergypersons, once ordained and admitted to membership in full connection, cannot have that standing changed without being accorded fair process.”

In a related ruling, the council said all name changes should be treated the same regardless of the reason.

Phoenix, who learned of the ruling Tuesday, said he was “happily surprised.”

Before undergoing surgery and hormone therapy, Phoenix spent five years as minister at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Baltimore as the Rev. Ann Gordon.

Phoenix was reappointed this spring by Bishop John Schol of the Methodists’ Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference, who noted that the denomination’s Book of Discipline said nothing about transgender clergy.

The United Methodist Church bars appointing “practicing” gay clergy and does not support same-sex unions. The issue of whether the church can have a transgender minister may yet be addressed by the church’s legislative body, which meets next spring in Fort Worth, Texas.

Phoenix said he has sometimes been discouraged by negative reaction to his status but thinks that staying on the job is a way to change minds.

“I’ve always been hopeful that the church will open its doors more and be more inclusive of the community, and I believe that happens when those of us that are in that community just keep showing up,” he said.

The judicial council met without its president, surgeon general nominee James Holsinger.

Holsinger, a Kentucky doctor who has been criticized by gay rights groups for such things as a 1991 paper in which he says gay sex was unnatural and unhealthy, bowed out of the meeting, saying his nomination could become a distraction.

WARRENSBURG (AP) – Three advertisers are pulling their business from a Warrensburg newspaper and several readers are threatening to cancel their subscriptions after the publication of a same-sex engagement announcement.

For John Scott Jr., 29, and Elijah Davidson, 29, asking The Daily Star-Journal in Warrensburg to run a photo and announcement of their Nov. 13 commitment ceremony was all about equality.

“I want people to know that he makes me happy, and all we want is to be happy just like straight couples,” Davidson, of Warrensburg, said during a telephone interview Wednesday.

Such announcements have become increasingly common. About 900 daily newspapers ran same-sex commitment announcements by the end of 2006, according to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a media watchdog group.

Rashad Robinson, the senior director of programs at the group, said The New York Times helped start the surge when it began running such announcements in 2002.

“It’s much more widespread than folks would believe, and I think the folks who are making a big stink out of it are truly outside of the mainstream,” Robinson said.

The Daily Star-Journal, which has a circulation of about 4,700, ran the Scott-Davidson announcement on Sept. 26. Since then, the paper has received more than a dozen letters for and against the announcement. Seven of them ran in the Friday edition – all of them expressing strong disagreement.

“Your bold decision to promote this lifestyle is a flagrant attack on the traditional family God has instituted for us,” wrote Bob Ingle, pastor of First Baptist Church in Warrensburg.

Two other readers, Jack and Serena Dillingham, wrote the decision to run the announcement showed a “lack of respect for family values and a lack of concern for the unnatural lifestyle.”

Several of the letter writers threatened to stop buying the newspaper, and at least two people told the circulation department the announcement was the reason they were canceling their subscriptions, said news editor Nan Cocke.

Cocke referred other questions to publisher Avis Tucker, who did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

Davidson said the negative response has not dampened the couple’s enthusiasm for the approaching ceremony in which they’ll exchange vows before friends and family. The event will coincide with the one-year anniversary of when they began dating.

“I am hoping that since me and John put our thing in the paper, that other gay couples who feel like they shouldn’t or have been afraid to do it will come forward and do it too,” he said. “And they’ll express their love and let people know that they’re happy and they want to spend the rest of their lives together.”

LAS VEGAS (AP) – No record exists to back claims by former ’N Sync member Lance Bass that he once married a girlfriend in Las Vegas, according to a clerk at the Clark County marriage license bureau.

Bass, who is openly gay, told E! News in an article published Tuesday on its Web site that he got hitched in “1999 or 2000” and the bride was “just a friend.”

A search of records from 1974 to 2007, however, indicated no marriage license under his name was pulled in Clark County, which encompasses Las Vegas.

Bass, who has been promoting his new memoir, “Out of Sync,” announced in July 2006 that he is gay. He has said that he didn’t reveal this earlier because he didn’t want to affect ’N Sync’s popularity.

NEW YORK (AP) – City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has declared a day against hate to counter a 20 percent rise in bias crimes.

Quinn, who is openly gay, says she wants to send a message “that we will not tolerate hate of any kind in our city.”

Quinn says the city is organizing a series of events on Nov. 29 that will bring together Holocaust survivors with school children as well as people of various races and nationalities to discuss crimes that have been reported recently.

On Wednesday, a Columbia University professor, who is Jewish, discovered a painted swastika on her office door. Last month, a noose was found on the door of another Columbia professor. Nooses have also been sound on Long Island, and in other parts of the country.

OLYMPIA (AP) – A state lawmaker who has voted against gay rights resigned Wednesday, days after he was quoted in police reports as saying a man he had sex with after they met at an erotic video store was trying to blackmail him.

Rep. Richard Curtis, 48, said he was resigning immediately to spare his wife and children more public embarrassment. In a written statement, Curtis said, “Events that have recently come to light have hurt a lot of people. I sincerely apologize for any pain my actions may have caused.”

Curtis, a Republican, told a newspaper in his southwest Washington district on Monday that sex was not involved in what he said was an extortion attempt. He also declared he was not gay.

But in police reports, Curtis said he was being extorted by a man he had sex with at a hotel room in Spokane, where Curtis was attending a GOP retreat. The other man, Cody Castagna, 26, contends Curtis reneged on a promise to pay $1,000 for sex.

Neither Curtis nor his lawyer, John Wolfe, has returned messages left by The Associated Press.

There have been no arrests in the case. Spokane County prosecutor Larry Steinmetz said Wednesday that a decision about criminal charges regarding the extortion accusation was weeks away.

Curtis was among state GOP lawmakers in Spokane Oct. 24-26 for meetings to discuss the upcoming legislative session. He went to the erotic video store early Oct. 26 and met Castagna, police documents said.

The two went to a hotel and had sex, according to police reports released Tuesday.

Curtis alleged Castagna took his wallet and later offered to return it for $1,000.

Elected to the state House of Representatives in 2004, Curtis has voted against bills that would grant civil rights protections to gays and lesbians, and against a bill that created domestic partnerships for same-sex couples. Both measures are now part of state law.

House Minority Leader Richard DeBolt said that as more details began to emerge, it was clear that Curtis “can no longer effectively represent the constituents who elected him.”

A successor will be chosen by county Republican leaders, and will serve until the 2008 election.