SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – An international human rights group that works to end discrimination against gay men and lesbians says it will honor the late Bay Area congressman Tom Lantos next month in San Francisco.

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission singled out Lantos, who died of cancer last month, to be honored along with Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, to receive the organization’s annual OUTSPOKEN award.

The New York-based group says that Lantos, who was the only Holocaust survivor in Congress at the time of his death, was a vocal supporter of rights for gay people around the globe.

He and Tutu are scheduled to be honored during an April 9 ceremony at Grace Cathedral.

HONOLULU (AP) – A University of Hawaii officials says the school is working on a policy to admit same-sex couples into family housing.

A gay couple is suing the university for not allowing them to return to the housing area they lived in last year because it’s reserved for married couples. Joseph O’Leary and Phi Ngo said living off-campus has cost them extra rent, transportation and food.

University Vice Chancellor Francisco Hernandez called the lawsuit surprising and disappointing.

He said the university already is working on changing its housing policies to accommodate gay couples.

School officials earlier said they were reviewing the policy but could make no commitment.

Attorney Clyde Wadsworth said his clients would like to work with the university to help change the policy.

CHICAGO (AP) – U.S. syphilis cases climbed for the seventh straight year in 2007, and increases in the disease among gay men and blacks largely contributed, government researchers reported last week.

The trend can be partly blamed on too few gay men getting recommended annual screenings for syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, citing studies released at an STD conference in Chicago.

While the number of cases still is relatively low – 11,181 last year – the trend worries public health officials, who say better awareness and screening is needed.

About 60 percent of syphilis cases last year occurred in gay men, compared with just 5 percent in 1999, according to preliminary CDC data presented at the conference.

The main symptom is painless sores at the site where the syphilis bacteria entered the body. It is easily treated with antibiotics if caught early; if not, complications can include blindness and organ damage. Syphilis also increases susceptibility to AIDS infections, and can be fatal to infants who get it from infected mothers during pregnancy.

The data show the syphilis rate increased about 12 percent between 2006 and 2007, to about 3.7 cases per 100,000. That’s a jump from 9,756 cases in 2006 to 11,181 last year, CDC researchers reported.

It’s also a 76 percent increase since 2000, when the rate was 2.1 per 100,000.

Among black men, rates jumped 25 percent to almost 22 cases per 100,000. Among black women, there was a 12 percent increase, to about 5 cases per 100,000.

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) – A new South Dakota law that goes on the books July 1 will require people to register as sex offenders if found guilty of purposely infecting sex partners with the AIDS virus.

Two people in the state have been convicted in recent years of intentionally infecting others with HIV. The maximum prison term for the crime is 15 years in prison.

People convicted of most sex offenses already must give their names, addresses and other information to law agencies for inclusion on the registry.

Failure to register as a sex offender or verify that status twice annually is punishable by up to two years in prison.

The sex offender registry is a public record and can be viewed on the Internet.

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) – The senior pastor of a Baptist church embroiled in a debate over putting photos of its gay members in a church directory will be allowed to keep his pulpit.

Members of Broadway Baptist Church voted 499 to 237 on March 9 to reject an attempt to oust the Rev. Brett Younger.

“I hope we will move forward and be the church together and that others will come and share church with us,” said Younger, who has led the congregation for seven years. “Broadway has been, for a long time, an amazing congregation that is willing to tackle difficult issues. I think it will continue to be a congregation that challenges its members to think and serve.”

A group calling itself Friends for the Future of Broadway had collected more than 160 signatures on a petition calling for Younger’s removal. They worried that Younger was embracing a theology they considered too liberal.

“We respect the will of the majority and pray for the congregation’s healing, recovery and continued service to the community that befits a 125-year-old church,” said Robert Saul, a spokesman for the group.

While the congregation is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, it has taken positions to the left of the conservative-dominated denomination.

Last year, several gay couples who belong to the church asked that their portraits be allowed to appear in the church’s 125th anniversary directory. Critics said the photos could be interpreted as endorsing same-sex relationships. As a compromise, the church voted last month to publish a directory that would include member photos in “candid, small and large group pictures” but not include family portraits.

“Broadway has always been a moderate Baptist church that didn’t lean too far to the left or lean too far to the right,” said Tom Dodson, a longtime church member. “Our concern is that we are leaning too far to the left and losing our Baptist distinctive beliefs.”

After the vote, church members stood in a long receiving line for a chance to hug Younger.

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) – Domestic partners will be granted more than 170 of the benefits and responsibilities given to married couples under a measure signed into law March 12 by Gov. Chris Gregoire.

The measure adds domestic partners to sections of laws where previously only spouses were mentioned, including areas referring to probate and trusts, community property and homestead exemptions, and guardianship and powers of attorney.

“This bill is about protecting and helping Washington families,” Gregoire said before signing the bill. “It simply gives these families the same rights as everybody else. It’s the right thing to do.”

The law takes effect on June 12.

The underlying domestic partnership law, passed last year, already provides hospital visitation rights, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations and inheritance rights when there is no will.

More than 3,500 couples have registered as domestic partners since the law took effect last year.

The measure makes dozens of changes to state law, including requiring domestic partners of public officials to submit financial disclosure forms, just as the spouses of heterosexual officials do.

It also would give domestic partners the same spousal testimony rights that married couples have, allowing domestic partners the right to refuse to testify against each other in court.

“Domestic partners still lack the vast majority of the protections that married couples take for granted in Washington state,” said Rep. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle and sponsor of the measure. He said the new law is the “next step in addressing that injustice.”

Under the measure, the process of ending a domestic partnership also would be changed, allowing the secretary of state to end partnerships only in the first five years, with several more restrictions relating to children, real property or unpaid debts.

All other partnerships would be dissolved in superior court – similar to conventional divorce.

To be registered as partners, couples must share a home, must not be married or in a domestic relationship with someone else, and be at least 18.

In a provision similar to California law, unmarried heterosexual senior couples also are eligible for domestic partnerships if one partner is at least 62. Lawmakers said that provision was included to help seniors who are at risk of losing pension rights and Social Security benefits if they remarry.

Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, who sponsored the original domestic partnership measure last year, said that the expansion of rights was “a sign of hope to gay and lesbian families across this state that one day we will receive the full recognition that our relationships deserve.”

The domestic partnership bill is House Bill 3104.