BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) – AIDS patients face eviction from a group home in Bakersfield because a trust that owned the property defaulted on its mortgage.

Audrey Chavez, director of Bakersfield AIDS Project, said her nonprofit organization has until Jan. 30 to vacate the house it rented for $800 a month. She said she found out over the summer that a bank was taking possession of the house, but couldn’t reach anyone at the trust to find out which bank had foreclosed on the house.

A Tehachapi resident bought the house last month for $215,000, according to real estate records.

Countrywide Financial Corp. said it was not aware the house was a group home for AIDS patients. The bank might have been willing to work with the organization if anyone had contacted Countrywide, company spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens said.

Three men live in the house, and dozens of others drop in regularly for hospice care, group meals and social services.

“A lot of HIV-positive people don’t have the support of their families, so this is their surrogate family,” Chavez said.

DENVER (AP) – The Episcopal Diocese of Colorado is ending its so-called “period of restraint” on ordaining gay priests.

Bishop Robert O’Neill ordained Mary Catherine Volland to the priesthood during a ceremony at St. John’s Cathedral on Saturday.

Volland, a longtime Colorado resident and partnered lesbian, had been a candidate for ordination in the Diocese of Minnesota. She will serve at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Denver.

The issue of gay priests has splintered the church nationwide. Beckett Stokes, spokeswoman for the 30,000 member Colorado diocese, said O’Neill had suspended gay ordination out of sensitivity for church factions strongly opposed to it. She says O’Neill is now deciding the matter on a case-by-case basis. Several Colorado congregations are served by gay priests.

MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) – More Iowans are being diagnosed with HIV, but the number of Iowans dying from AIDS is decreasing.

The Iowa Department of Public Health reports that 1,567 people in Iowa were living with HIV or AIDS in 2008. That includes 642 cases of HIV and 925 cases of AIDS.

There were 127 new diagnoses of HIV reported in 2007. That’s more than in the previous two years. In the first half of 2008, the latest reporting period, 49 diagnoses were reported. That compares to 59 during the same period in 2007.

The health department estimates another 566 people are infected but haven’t been diagnosed.

AIDS became reportable in Iowa in 1983.

HIV is the virus that causes AIDS, a disease that weakens the immune system, gradually destroying the body’s ability to fight infections and certain cancers. There is no cure.

Public health spokesman Randy Mayer said last year there were 32 Iowans who died of AIDS. That compares to 102 deaths in 1995.

More Iowans are living with HIV and AIDS because of improved medications, which are keeping patients alive longer, Mayer said.

“With good treatment and early diagnosis, we wouldn’t expect it to significantly change your life expectancy,” he said. “It’s starting to move, in some people’s minds, to more of a chronic disease.”

Unprotected sex is the primary cause of HIV and AIDS in Iowa, Mayer said. Most AIDS patients are men.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates about 1 million U.S residents are living with HIV or AIDS, and about a quarter of them don’t know they have it. According to the CDC, about 75 percent of the 40,000 new infections each year are in men.

The Cerro Gordo County Department of Health in Mason City tests for HIV. Betty Krones, a registered nurse and disease prevention specialist, says about one-third of the people who have HIV aren’t aware of it.

“Our job as a testing facility is to find those who are HIV-positive. We go over the results with them and hook them up with the services they need. We want to help them live a healthy life,” Krones said.

Those who test positive are referred to an HIV clinic for treatment. In Iowa, clinics are in Des Moines, Davenport, Iowa City and Sioux City.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – The state attorney general has asked a federal judge to reconsider his ruling that both adoptive fathers’ names must be added to the birth certificate of a boy born in Shreveport.

Court papers filed Wednesday in new Orleans ask U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey either to hold a full trial or to ask the state Supreme Court to interpret the state law at the heart of the matter.

Zainey ruled without a trial in December, saying the facts were so clear that none was needed.

He ordered the state Office of Vital Records to put the names of the two gay men, Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith, on the amended birth certificate that is standard for adoptions.

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (AP) – Six weeks after passing a gay rights law, the Kalamazoo City Commission has voted to rescind it.

The commission voted Dec. 1 to make it a civil offense in the city of 7,200 to discriminate in housing, public accommodations or employment based on sexual orientation or being transgender.

The American Family Association of Michigan submitted petitions with about 1,600 signatures seeking the law’s repeal. If officials found at least 1,273 signatures valid, the commission would have had to rescind the law or put it on the ballot.

The commission voted 7-0 Monday night to rescind it.

Commissioner Stephanie Minor tells WWMT-TV the council will consider a revised gay rights law.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – The director of North Dakota’s Human Rights Coalition says his group is working on legislation to ban discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Mitch Marr says the bill will include anti-discrimination language on sexual orientation in North Dakota’s human rights and fair housing laws.

Marr says it would prohibit discrimination against gays and lesbians in issues of housing, employment, public accommodations and credit transactions.

He said the legislation will be formally introduced in the North Dakota Legislature next week.

ASHLAND, Ore. (AP) – Clergy members at an Ashland church performed marriage ceremonies for five same-sex couples, even though Oregon doesn’t recognize the marriages as legal.

The Rev. Pam Shepherd and three other clergy members who performed the ceremonies Saturday at the First Congregational United Church of Christ have pledged not to sign marriage licenses for any couple, gay or straight, until they can sign the licenses for all.

They say they’ll let the state worry about the civil side of the religious ceremonies they held Saturday.

Lisa Spencer and Karen Wennlund were among the couples. They say the day was as much about the couples’ commitment to God, their communities and each other as it was about making a political statement.

PITTSBURGH (AP) – Pittsburgh police say they’ve opened a wide-ranging investigation of a private health club geared toward gay men where an Ohio man was found dead Jan. 3.

Autopsy results on 31-year-old Cleophus Pettway of Youngstown are still pending.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has reported that Club Pittsburgh stayed open after its politically connected owners talked with city officials, despite complaints about nude go-go dancers, pornographic movies and sexual activity.

An attorney for the club owners say they are cooperating with investigators. Police say the investigation is general in nature, meant to determine if there was any criminal activity at the club.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Gay rights advocates are gearing up for efforts to persuade the state Legislature to pass a package of bills that would give basic civil rights to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Utahns.

A group gathered at a chapel on Capitol Hill Monday calling on lawmakers to support the Common Ground Initiative during their session, which starts next week.

Bountiful Community Church of Christ Rev. Russell Baker says the group of bills, pushed by advocacy group Equality Utah, is not part of a gay agenda but is rather about human rights.

State Senate President Michael Waddoups says he thinks lawmakers should look at the bills, which would address issues like fair housing and employment and domestic partnership rights.

WASHINGTON (AP) – A Vatican office that evaluated U.S. Roman Catholic seminaries says the schools have made improvements in halting what they call “homosexual behavior” among students.

The Vatican also says seminaries are doing well in teaching about celibacy and are generally effective in screening candidates for the priesthood.

The Vatican ordered the seminary review in response to the clergy sex abuse crisis to see whether the schools had contributed to the problem.

The Vatican also directed evaluators to look for “evidence of homosexuality” in the schools.