DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Iowa House Minority Leader Chris Rants said March 3 that he would use an unusual political maneuver to push a resolution on same-sex marriage out of committee.

Rants, R-Sioux City, wants a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage brought to the House floor this year, but he said the measure has been stalled by Democrats in the Judiciary Committee.

“It seems to me that if Democrats think we have an hour to debate sewage systems, surely they would give us 10 minutes to debate the value of traditional marriage and whether that ought to be the law of the land or not,” Rants said during a news conference March 3.

To push the resolution, Rants plans to use a rare rule that would require the entire House chamber to vote whether the measure should be forced from committee and put on the debate schedule. He claims there is enough bipartisan support to do just that so long as Democratic leaders don’t try to quash it.

“Either the body as a whole takes hold of it ... or we allow the Democrats on a party line vote to kill this,” he said.

Iowa law already defines marriage as between a man and woman, but that law has been challenged and is now before the Iowa Supreme Court. Rants said a constitutional amendment would protect traditional marriage from judicial challenge.

House Speaker Pat Murphy, D-Dubuque, said Rants has the right to push for the bill, but he maintained that legislators should wait for the high court to makes its decision.

“Our position has not changed. We are not going to interfere in the judicial process while the Supreme Court is reviewing the case,” he said. “We are going to continue our focus on improving education, expanding health care and creating good jobs for Iowans.”

Rants timed Monday’s announcement to go along with the Legislature’s first funnel week, where bills not approved by a committee are rejected. Because the constitutional amendment is a resolution and not a bill, it isn’t subject to the funnel, but Rants said it was the appropriate time to bring it up.

“This is the week in which traditionally all the bills live or die. It seems to me it’s now or never,” he said.

Rants said if the current attempt fails, “I may have another trick up my sleeve, but we’ll see.”

ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) – Ending a long legal battle over what teachers can tell students about sexual orientation, a group that opposes new sex education lessons for middle and high school students in Montgomery County won’t appeal a ruling in favor of the school system.

The group leading the opposition to the revised curriculum is called Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum. It decided it did not have a good chance of overturning last month’s decision in Circuit Court.

Instead, spokeswoman Michelle Turner said, the group will seek other ways to change the lessons.

“We think there are other avenues that would be more timely and have a greater impact,” Turner said. “We realize that we’re not going to get the outcome we’re looking for in a Montgomery County court, but we’re far from done.”

After a debate that lasted six years, the school system adopted a new sex education curriculum last summer. The disagreement centered on how best to update lesson plans a citizens advisory group said were outdated.

Some lessons now include discussions on homosexuality and the correct use of condoms.

CRC objected to lessons that describe homosexuality as innate, saying those lessons violate a state law that says teachings must be factual.

They also objected to a mention of anal intercourse, saying it violates a law against teaching “erotic techniques.”

Circuit Judge William Rowan III ruled for the school system, echoing a Maryland State Board of Education decision last year that determined the group had no right to “second-guess the appropriateness” of the curriculum adopted by the community.

Turner said the group will encourage the state legislature or State Board of Education to define what constitutes an erotic technique; that decision is currently left to local school boards.

CRC will also continue working with other groups to distribute information challenging the claim that homosexuality is innate.

Brian Edwards is chief of staff for Montgomery Superintendent Jerry D. Weast. He said administrators are happy with CRC’s decision not to continue the legal challenge.

“Unfortunately, a small group of opponents have cost taxpayers thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend this, so obviously we’re very pleased that it’s over,” Edwards said. “We are going to focus on instruction. We are not going to focus on actions they may or may not take in other venues.”

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – A Minneapolis man arrested in the same airport bathroom sex sting that netted U.S. Senator Larry Craig has been acquitted.

Thirty-nine-year-old Vince Tuzon used a similar argument to Craig in pleading not guilty. Tuzon claimed he wasn’t guilty because the police officer initiated the foot-tapping.

A Hennepin County jury agreed with Tuzon.

His lawyer says Tuzon feels he was set up after being “essentially bombarded with overtures” while in the bathroom.

A Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman says they were “disappointed” with the verdict.

Craig was arrested June 11 in the same operation. The Idaho senator first pleaded guilty, but is trying to withdraw that plea.

NEW YORK (AP) – Cyndi Lauper will take her “True Colors” tour back on the road this summer.

Lauper, whose tour last year promoted gay rights, will open the second go-round in Boston on May 31 alongside fellow headliners Rosie O’Donnell and the B-52s, it was announced March 5.

Carson Kressley (“Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”) will host the 24-city event, which winds down in Morrison, Colorado, on July 5.

“The tour is a nonstop five-hour music party with a message,” Lauper, 54, said. “This year, the party only gets bigger and our message to the fans is to get out and vote in November.”

Guest artists such as Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Regina Spektor, the Indigo Girls and Wanda Sykes will perform at various cities throughout the tour.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) – Less than a month after same-sex couples started taking advantage of a new law allowing them to register as domestic partners, two Republican state legislators filed a proposed initiative that would repeal it.

Rep. Sal Esquivel, R-Medford, and Sen. Fred Girod, R-Stayton, are chief petitioners for the initiative filed late Friday with the secretary of state’s office. Opponents of the civil union law say it undermines a measure approved by voters in 2004 that amended the Oregon Constitution to declare that marriage is only legal when it’s between a man and a woman.

“People need to weigh in,” Esquivel said.

The law passed by the 2007 Legislature was to take effect when the new year started, but U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman suspended it to hear testimony about a petition drive that sought to put the law before voters. The petitions fell 96 valid signatures short of the 55,179 needed to refer the law to the November 2008 ballot.

The law belatedly took effect last month after Mosman ruled the state’s process of disqualifying petition signatures was consistent enough to be valid.

More than 1,300 same-sex couples registered for domestic partnerships last month. The law gives those couples most of the state benefits of marriage.

Esquivel and Girod are supporting the initiative on behalf of opponents organized by Marylin Shannon, a former Republican state senator.

Shannon’s group is the one that failed to gather enough signatures to refer the law to voters. Now it must collect 82,769 valid signatures from residents by July 3 to put the initiative on the fall ballot.

Basic Rights Oregon, the state’s largest GLBT-rights group, said it would fight any attempt to overturn the civil unions law.

“Folks behind this effort are really out of step with Oregonians,” said Jeana Frazzini, executive director.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – A group for victims of clergy sex abuse want Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin to push people to talk to police in the case of a priest accused of sexually abusing children.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests made the request March 5, weeks after it was revealed that the Rev. Philip A. Magaldi is HIV positive.

Magaldi was removed as a priest in 1999 after claims of sexual misconduct at Catholic parishes in Providence and Fort Worth, Texas. He hasn’t been charged, and says he’s innocent.

SNAP wants Tobin to personally visit the parishes where Magaldi worked and aggressively urge victims to go to police.

The group says those parishes have only read a short statement urging people to bring information to the diocese.

The diocese says people are always free to go to police.