BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) – A conservative group will hold a conference on homosexuality this week, and gay rights organizations say they plan to stage a protest.

Focus on the Family will hold a conference on Saturday at Birmingham’s Metropolitan Church of God.

Melissa Fryrear, director of gender issues for Focus on the Family and one of the speakers, says the conference teaches that those with same-sex attractions can change. She says the conference is for parents who don’t condone their children’s homosexual behavior but still love them.

Johnathan Quinn, president of Central Alabama Pride, says Focus on the Family’s literature tells parents to abandon their children if they fail to behave in a prescribed manner.

Fryrear says Focus on the Family does not want parents to shun homosexual children.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) – Kentucky’s low-income AIDS patients face the longest waiting list in the country for a government program that offers free or low-cost drugs to fight the disease.

Kentucky has more than 1,200 people enrolled in its program low-income AIDS and HIV patients. But, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports, nearly 100 patients are on a waiting list for the program.

Sigga Jagne, the state’s HIV/AIDS program manager, tells the newspaper 20 to 30 people are added to the list monthly. Jagne says it’s uncertain how long people will be on the list.

Jagne says the program’s demand has increased during the recession while federal funding has decreased and state funding has ceased.

Eight states in the country had waiting lists as of last month, and Nebraska was next in line with 75 people.

WORCESTER, Massachusetts (AP) – A growing number of asylum seekers are using U.S. immigration courts to argue that their sexual orientation makes it too dangerous for them to return home.

Victoria Neilson, an attorney for the New York-based Immigration Equality, said the nonprofit group successfully won 55 asylum cases last year using sexual orientation as grounds, a record for the organization. That’s a jump from 2007 when the group won 30 cases.

The exact number nationally is unknown since U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services doesn’t keep data on those asylum cases.

Nathaniel Cunningham, a 32-year-old gay Jamaican man now living in Worcester, recently won his case after describing the violence he faced in Jamaica.

Since 1994, sexual orientation has been grounds for asylum in the U.S.

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) – The secretary of state’s office says 1,002 couples in Nevada have registered as domestic partners.

The law passed by the 2009 Legislature extends rights similar to those held by married couples – including community property and the right to seek financial support after a breakup – to cohabiting couples, gay or straight.

More than 700 couples pre-registered to receive their certificates on Oct. 1, the day the law took effect.

Secretary of State Ross Miller on Monday said there’s been a “steady stream” of registrations since then.

Nevada is one of 17 states that have laws recognizing domestic arrangements outside of marriage.

NEW YORK (AP) – “Crash” director Paul Haggis has severed his ties with the Church of Scientology, in part because of the organization’s stance against gay marriage.

Haggis wrote a letter addressed to Tommy Davis, the head of Scientology’s Celebrity Centre. In it, Haggis said he was disappointed by the church’s tacit denial of gay rights and its backing of California’s gay marriage ban.

The 56-year-old Haggis, who won an Oscar in 2005 for co-writing “Crash,” said he was quitting the church after 35 years.

“I could not, in good conscience, be a member of an organization where gay-bashing was tolerated,” Haggis wrote.

The filmmaker said that he was promised that action would be taken but that he was frustrated after time passed.

“Silence is consent, Tommy,” Haggis wrote. “I refuse to consent.”

The letter, dated Aug. 19, was published in a blog about Scientology and has since been widely circulated online.

Ziggy Kozlowski, a publicist for Haggis, confirmed that the director wrote the letter. Kozlowski said the letter was intended to remain private.

Messages left with the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles weren’t immediately returned Monday.

For an organization often shrouded in secrecy, the letter offered an unusual window into a dialogue between the church and one of its famous members. Occasionally, Scientology materials are leaked. Last year, a promotional video starring its most famous member, Tom Cruise, was watched by millions.

Haggis said he was “shocked” that the Church of Scientology was publicly denying that it adheres to a policy of disconnection – of severing ties with a friend or family member who’s antagonistic toward Scientology. Haggis said that his wife, Deborah Rennard, was given precisely those orders and didn’t speak to her parents for more than a year.

“The great majority of Scientologists I know are good people who are genuinely interested in improving conditions on this planet and helping others,” Haggis wrote. “I have to believe that if they knew what I now know, they too would be horrified.”

Haggis, who also wrote the Oscar-winning “Million Dollar Baby,” is shooting “The Next Three Days” in Pittsburgh. It stars Russell Crow, Liam Neeson and Elizabeth Banks.

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) – An early 20th century literary figure has become the first person Ohio has honored with a historical marker noting sexual orientation.

The marker was unveiled Nov. 1 for Natalie Barney, a lesbian writer and literary patron who was born in Dayton in 1876 and lived most of her life in Paris.

Ohio Historical Society officials, city commissioners and members of state and local gay rights organizations took part in a ceremony at Cooper Park, near the downtown library.

Ohio historical officials say they want to honor the history of all the state’s people. Barney wrote with lesbian and feminist themes, and her openly gay lifestyle was rare at the turn of the century.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) – Gay rights backers plan to ask Oregon voters to reverse their ban on gay marriage.

Basic Rights Oregon said Nov. 2 that it hopes to put the issue back before Oregon voters as soon as 2012.

In 2004, Oregon voters passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Basic Rights has said that next year’s election would likely be too soon to take the issue back to Oregon voters, but advocates want to begin laying the groundwork for an initiative campaign.

They have been encouraged by the legalization of same-sex marriage in six states: Massachusetts, Iowa, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut and New Hampshire. They believe Oregon voters eventually will be ready to move in that direction.

Oregon became one of the first places to allow gay marriage in 2004 when Multnomah County moved to legalize it. That lasted about six weeks until a judge ruled that there was no right to gay marriage under state law, thus invalidating 3,000 marriage licenses issued to gay and lesbian couples. Then voters approved the statewide constitutional amendment.,

Since then, the 2007 Legislature approved a domestic partners law giving same-sex couples some, but not all, of the rights and responsibilities afforded to married couples.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – Gays in Rhode Island would get the right to plan the funerals of their late partners under a bill heading to Gov. Don Carcieri’s desk.

The legislation approved Oct. 29 by the state Senate would give gay men and women the same right to plan the funerals of their partners as if they were married. Rhode Island is the only New England state that does not recognize gay marriage.

It would also allow the medical examiner to release a body to the late person’s domestic partner.