WILMORE, Ky. (AP) – United Methodists who oppose ordaining gay clerics feel a jury in a church trial ignored the denomination’s law by acquitting a lesbian pastor and want church leaders to take action at an upcoming national meeting.

Good News, which represents evangelical Methodists, is asking for a review by the Judicial Council – the denomination’s top court – of the church trial and verdict in the case of the Rev. Karen Dammann. Good News also wants changes that would “close loopholes” in judicial proceedings.

Last month, a jury of 13 Methodist pastors acquitted Dammann of violating a church ban on ordaining “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals.”

The Washington state pastor had informed her bishop that she was in a committed relationship with a woman. But the jury said that the evidence did not support the charge that she had violated church law.

A retired bishop had testified for the defense that the ban on ordaining gays was part of the church’s social principles, not church law, and could therefore only be considered a guideline.

Good News, based in Wilmore, called the decision “a disturbing example of jury nullification,” in which jurors refuse to acknowledge established law in reaching a verdict.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) – Gay rights advocates scored a major victory with a House committee vote that approves creating a state registry of domestic partners that would grant them the right to make medical decisions for each other.

The bill gathered bipartisan support from the Health and Government Operations Committee in a 15-6 vote and now goes to the full House of Delegates for consideration. The legislation, brought by the chair of the committee, brings to light that gay and lesbian couples live in circumstances “that should not be tolerated” – the denial of medical decision-making rights, said Delegate Sandy Rosenberg, D-Baltimore, a committee member who strongly supported the bill.

“The most emotional testimony we heard was, ‘My fear is that I won’t be there when the person I love the most dies,’” Rosenberg said. “This significantly reduces the likelihood of that occurring.”

The Medical Decision Making Act creates a registry with the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and those eligible to join would be gay and lesbian couples 18 and older. Also eligible would be couples at least 62 years old – gay and straight. Delegate John Hurson, D-Montgomery, sponsor and committee chairman, wanted to make older couples eligible, because they can face tax penalties when they marry.

BOSTON (AP) – Gov. Mitt Romney wants the state’s highest court to put same-sex marriages on hold now that the legislature has backed a proposed constitutional amendment to bar them. But the state’s Democratic attorney general is balking at making the request.

Legislators approved a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriages while legalizing civil unions. If passed a second time during the next Legislative session, the measure would go before voters in November 2006.

Under the November decision by the Supreme Judicial Court, same-sex marriages are scheduled to begin in Massachusetts on May 17.

Romney, a first-term Republican, has said that allowing the marriages to go forward in the interim would create massive legal confusion, for both the couples involved and the state.

“Given the conflict, I believe the Supreme Judicial Court should delay the imposition of its decision until the people have a chance to be heard,” Romney said.

But Attorney General Tom Reilly, whose represents the state in court, said he would not seek to delay the May 17 deadline on Romney’s behalf.

Legal experts have said that without Reilly on his side, any effort by Romney to block same-sex marriages would be legally difficult – and, in any event, unlikely to be embraced by a court that has twice declared it unconstitutional to ban gay and lesbian couples from marriage.

“I think it’s extremely unlikely that the court would stay a decision for 2 1/2 years,” said attorney Paul Martinek, editor of Lawyers Weekly USA. “That’s just too long a period of time to expect people to wait for what the court has said is a fundamental right.”

Gay-rights advocates felt little joy in seeing a proposed amendment include civil-union rights. They had already witnessed the state’s highest court award full marriage rights only to see lawmakers try to water it down.

But conservatives also weren’t quick to embrace the compromise amendment, calling it blackmail to force citizens to approve civil unions as part of a marriage ban.

“We are giving the people a false choice,” said Rep. Vinny de Macedo, a Republican. “We’re saying, ‘No problem, you can vote to define marriage as between a man and a woman, but the only way you can do it is if you create civil unions that are entirely the same as marriage.””

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – A Multnomah Circuit Court judge has turned down a request by 14 state lawmakers who wanted to join a lawsuit over the legality of same-sex marriages in Oregon.

Judge Frank Bearden rejected the Republican legislators’ “motion to intervene” in a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, because he said it would slow down proceedings.

Bearden said the controversy over Multnomah County’s decisions to begin issuing marriage license to same-sex couples demanded a prompt decision.

“This court is merely a speed bump on the road to the (state) Supreme Court,” he said.

Rep. Dennis Richardson, who brought the motion to intervene on behalf of the legislators as individuals, said he was disappointed by what he called an unfair and overly hasty ruling.

But Lynn Nakamoto, who represented the ACLU, applauded Bearden’s decision. “This should be an orderly process,” she said, “and multiple interventions by multiple parties would only confuse the proceedings.”

The ACLU brought the lawsuit on behalf of nine gay and lesbian couples who say the state violated their rights under the Oregon Constitution by not registering their marriages with the Office of Vital Statistics.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – After battling for gay rights in Utah for nearly five years, the head of Salt Lake City’s only gay and lesbian community center is leaving the state to work on public policy in the national arena.

Paula Wolfe, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center of Utah, cited Utah’s increasingly conservative political landscape as another reason for her resignation.

This year’s legislative session was “one of the more vicious ones that I’ve seen,” said Wolfe.

Lawmakers this year not only banned same-sex marriage but also put that in the form of a constitutional amendment, to be decided by the state’s voters in November.

The legislature also opposed gay and lesbian surrogate parenting and defeated hate-crimes legislation.

Gay rights “is challenging work, especially when you’re in a community like Utah where the dominant religion is one of the strongest opponents of human gay rights,” said Utah Progressive Network’s Lorna Vogt.

About 70 percent of the state’s 2.2 million residents are nominally members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which strongly espouses traditional family values.

Wolfe said she’s “leaving the center in good shape.”

“I really feel the center is seen as a bridge builder not only within factions in the gay community, but between the gay community and non-gay community,” Wolfe said.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry says he believes people are born gay but are not guaranteed the right to marry within their own gender.

“I think it’s entirely who you are from birth, personally,” Kerry said in MTV’s “Choose or Lose: 20 Million Questions for John Kerry” March 23. “Some people might choose, but I think that it’s, it’s who you are. I think you have ... people need to be able to be who they are.”

Asked why he favors civil unions instead of marriage if people are born gay, Kerry replied: “What is distinct is the institutional name or whatever people look at as the sacrament within a church, or within a synagogue or within a mosque as a religious institution. There is a distinction. And the civil state really just adopted that, and it’s the rights that are important, not the sort of ... the name of the institution.”

The presumptive Democratic nominee said he favors civil unions to give people partnership, inheritance and other rights.

“I think that people have a right in America to be who they are,” Kerry said. “I believe very strongly that we can advance the cause of equality by moving toward civil union.”

President Bush supports a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, a measure Kerry opposes on the grounds that marriage is a state issue. Kerry has said he would outlaw job discrimination against gays and lesbians, extend hate-crime protection to them, and allow them to serve openly in the military.