DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, was presented with an award by a national gay and lesbian rights organization, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. PFLAG will honor Leach with the inaugural Lincoln’s Birthday Award.

“By supporting gender identity legislation, Jim Leach has shown that being a Republican does not mean opposing fairness,” said David Tseng, PFLAG’s executive director.

“He has movingly expressed to our parents his understanding of the importance of equality, particularly for transgender persons.”

HONOLULU (AP) – A bill that would allow same-sex civil unions has died in a state House committee, failing to move out of the House Judiciary Committee.

Proponents were told that the committee had no quorum to vote following a lengthy public hearing and no time to take a vote by the deadline, according to Ken Miller, executive director of the gay-rights nonprofit called The Center.

However, a companion bill that would ban housing discrimination based on sexual orientation survives.

House Judiciary Committee vice chairman Blake Oshiro said a vote on the bill by a March 5 deadline is possible. But he said he doesn’t know if it has committee support.

Opponents of the civil unions bill see it as a substitute or precursor to marriage for gays and lesbians. Hawaii voters in 1998 overwhelmingly approved a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

ATLANTA (AP) – Georgia Democrats are deeply divided over a proposed constitutional amendment banning marriage for gays and lesbians and may introduce their own version to avert a potential party rift over the issue.

In a closed-door meeting, House Democrats debated whether they should introduce a new constitutional amendment simply giving the Legislature the right to ban marriage for gays and lesbians.

That would be more flexible than the amendment supported by Republicans and adopted by the Senate, which says no union between gays and lesbians would be recognized in Georgia.

Marriage for gays and lesbians is already illegal in Georgia, although the constitution doesn’t address the matter.

The Democratic hand wringing in the meeting intensified when the Legislature’s only openly gay member, Rep. Karla Lea Drenner, talked for the first time about being a gay lawmaker.

Drenner told fellow gay rights supporters the time had come for her to chide colleagues for treating her poorly.

“They turn their back on you, and they look at you like you’re some scourge of God,” Drenner said, crying so hard she had trouble talking. “People wouldn’t ride elevators with me. But I love them. Even if they wouldn’t give me a drink of water if I was thirsty, I love them.”

“Those of us from rural areas, we’d have to vote for it, and we will,” said Rep. Mike Snow, D-Chickamauga, who represents a rural, conservative district in northwest Georgia.

“I personally don’t think men and men ought to be having weddings,” he added.

Two-thirds of the House would have to vote in favor of the ban for it to go to Georgia voters this fall.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – Confirmation of a gay bishop is causing more than spiritual rifts in Tennessee’s Episcopal churches. It is leading to budget troubles, too.

Church members at their annual meeting for West Tennessee congregations were told the diocese has had to cut $200,000 from its budget this year, at least partly because of philosophical clashes over gays and lesbians.

Much of the turmoil has been stirred by the confirmation of V. Gene Robinson as bishop of the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire. Church members also have clashed over differences in their views toward marriage for gays and lesbians.

Nationally, church revenues are down about $3 million.

Convention delegates discussed resolutions that would define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. They also discussed allowing conservative Episcopalians to join the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes or other supportive associations and remain in the Episcopal Church.

Opponents argued that allowing members to join the Anglican network would simply widen the rift in the church.

BOSTON (AP) – House Speaker Thomas Finneran said he no longer opposes establishing a constitutional right to civil unions, as long as the Legislature still has a chance to define the benefits and rights of such unions.

Finneran co-sponsored a compromise amendment during a constitutional convention that would have established civil unions as long as marriage remained for heterosexuals only, but some questioned his sincerity.

In nearly a decade as speaker, Finneran has blocked several bills that would give gay and lesbian couples domestic partner benefits, as well as other bills to create civil unions and marriage for gays and lesbians.

Finneran said he adopted his position after colleagues questioned whether he truly intended to back a civil unions bill this spring if the Legislature supported his own amendment to define marriage as a union of a man and woman. That measure was defeated 100-to-98.

The constitutional convention is set to reconvene March 11 with the compromise amendment still on the table.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – The House came to a partisan standstill after Republicans said they would try a little-used procedure in hopes forcing a vote on a state constitutional amendment to ban marriage for gays and lesbians.

Chances of such a “blast motion” succeeding and bringing the shelved proposal to the floor seemed doubtful.

House Republicans said Democratic House Speaker Patrick Bauer would not assure them that the motion at least be considered, so they refused to provide a quorum needed to conduct House business. It was unclear how long the standoff would last.

Indiana already has a law banning marriage for gays and lesbians, and Bauer said there was no need to enflame a controversy he said was better left to other states.

But Republicans noted that some gay and lesbian couples have challenged Indiana’s law in a case now before the Indiana Court of Appeals. They said the “sanctity of traditional marriage” was at stake and should not be left for judges to decide.

A handful of Democrats and all 49 Republicans have signed a petition in support of amending the state constitution with a ban on marriage for gays and lesbians. Amending the constitution takes passage of a resolution by two consecutive General Assembly meetings and approval in a statewide vote, a process that usually takes at least three years.

CLEVELAND (AP) – The nation’s first voter-approved domestic partner registry is being challenged in court, but the mayor of Cleveland Heights remains confident the registry will survive.

The Rev. Jimmie Hicks Jr., a Cleveland Heights councilman, sued in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, seeking to stop the Cleveland suburb from continuing to register gay and straight unmarried couples.

“In one respect I’m sad that a lawsuit was filed. On the other hand, they have a right to do what they think they need to do,” Cleveland Heights Mayor Edward Kelley said.

The initiative creating the registry passed with 55 percent of the vote last November in the community of 50,000.

The recognition is not binding on courts, governments or employers. But supporters hope it will make it easier for couples to share employment benefits, inherit property or get hospital visiting rights.

Hicks’ lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the registry, claiming the city did not have the proper authority to create it.

David Caldwell, spokesman for the pro-registry Heights Families for Equality, said supporters took extra care when drafting the ballot language to make sure it was legal.

“Now we’re going to see a challenge from our opponent on City Council who over the last several years has said, ‘All I ever really wanted was for the people to vote on this decision,’ and now suddenly after we held the vote that he asked for, he decided that he didn’t really have that much faith in the people,” Caldwell said.