HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A group of citizens asked Gov. Judy Martz to suspend a three-year-old state government employment regulation barring discrimination against gay and lesbian employees or job applicants.

Harris Himes, a Hamilton pastor and attorney, said the prohibition was added in the closing days of the former Gov. Marc Racicot’s administration in violation of laws requiring adequate advance public notice of such changes.

Interested Montanans were not told the change in administrative rules dealt with sexual orientation and instead the purpose was “disguised” as dealing merely with equal employment opportunity, nondiscrimination policy and sexual harassment, he said.

“There was no real discussion or information out there that sexual orientation was being injected into the administrative rules which were under consideration,” Himes told the governor. “This should be suspended. You have the power ... to withdraw this, because it was not done appropriately.”

Martz, who was lieutenant governor for Racicot, expressed reluctance to second-guess his legal opinion on adding sexual orientation as another basis on which government cannot discriminate in its personnel practices.

Racicot, a former attorney general, had believed that failing to add the provision would invite lawsuits, Martz said.

However, she agreed her administration will review how the rule was adopted to determine if any laws were broken.

“If the law was broken, we’ll look into it,” Martz said, adding she was not involved in adoption of the regulation in late 2000.

The discussion came during a meeting between Martz and a group called Montana Help Our Moral Environment. The 19 people at the meeting came from Billings, Hamilton, Havre, Missoula, Three Forks and Townsend.

Dallas Erickson, another Hamilton resident, urged the governor to help the group in its opposition to “sexually oriented businesses” by launching an investigation into health concerns surrounding strip clubs and adult stores.

Erickson said he’s convinced that increases in sexually transmitted diseases are attributable to such businesses and the state has an obligation to pass laws restricting what goes on in those operations.

Erickson suggested Martz appoint a commission to conduct an investigation.

Martz said she would talk to officials in the Department of Public and Health and Human Services about the group’s concerns. But she balked at the state doing the research for opponents of the controversial businesses.

“It’s not our job to prove your point,” she said.

Martz encouraged Erickson and his supporters to collect information on how the businesses may be related to disease and submit it to state officials for review.

While health issues are a matter for state government, the question of whether adult stores and strip clubs should operate at all belongs with local officials, the governor said.

Erickson said he was not urging a prohibition on the businesses, but rather stricter regulations regarding their activities.