CONWAY, Ark. (AP) – A Conway alderman had about 200 loud supporters for a resolution to denounce a gay-pride parade, but not one of his colleagues on the city council would second his call for a vote.

Alderman Sandy Brewer’s proposal was to dissociate the city from the parade planned for the 35th anniversary of the start of the gay-pride movement in New York’s Greenwich Village.

The resolution would not have carried any legal weight, but would have called the parade “a potentially divisive and disruptive activity” that the city would “neither encourage nor condone.”

The crowd complained vociferously when the other aldermen met Brewer’s proposal with silence, never seconding the motion and therefore not opening the floor to debate.

Parade organizers John Schenck and Robert Loyd welcomed the public response, saying it was good to begin discussing the issue. Schenck and Loyd live in a bright pink house in Conway and held a public commitment ceremony on the steps of the state Capitol in Little Rock earlier this year.

DENVER (AP) – The Colorado State University Board of Governors has rejected a plan to extend benefits to employees’ domestic partners, including those of the same sex.

“It’s more of a social policy issue that should be considered by the Legislature,” Board Chairman Donald Hamstra said after the 6-3 vote.

While CSU provisions allow benefits to those in common-law marriages, it has not followed the University of Colorado’s lead in adopting benefits for same-sex partners.

“I’m not surprised, but I am saddened. Saddened that we are sending a message that some are not welcome,” said Randy McCrillis, director of CSU’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Student Services.

He said CSU has lost potential employees to other institutions because it does not extend same-sex benefits.

The plan would have offered health insurance, medical leave and other perks to partners of CSU and CSU-Pueblo employees who are in exclusive, committed relationships.

Employee surveys indicated 14 CSU employees would have used such a program.

The CSU Benefits Committee has recommended the change four times since 1995, but the proposal did not reach the Board of Governors until new CSU president Larry Penley decided to pass it on this year.

“It was important to bring it forward,” Penley said. “I felt like it needed to have its day.”

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) – The debate over same-sex marriage has reached the Colorado Springs school board, which will discuss whether one of its goals should be promoting “stable, heterosexual, two-parent families.”

Board member Willie Breazell got the resolution a recent agenda despite the skepticism of at least one other board member.

“How does this relate to our goal of student achievement?” board member Karen Teja asked.

“I think it’s part of the problem we have in this district,” Breazell replied.

Two other school trustees agreed to put the resolution on the agenda, giving Breazell the three informal votes needed.

The proposed resolution asks Colorado Springs’ delegation to the Legislature to promote state policy “which defines, defends, maintains and nourishes stable, heterosexual, two-parent families.”

Breazell said he believes families are better off if parents stay together.

“The single-parent household is at a tremendous disadvantage in our society,” he said. “You need someone available for PTA meetings and all.”

Teja said the school district is responsible for the learning environment, not the family environment.

“My guess is that the majority of our students do not live in what this resolution is calling a ‘traditional’ family,” she said.

Teja questioned whether the resolution would run afoul of state and federal bans on discrimination.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) – The gay men who were parenting quadruplets and another baby have separated amid allegations of domestic violence, according to court records.

Michael Meehan had filed a petition seeking a domestic violence order against his former partner, Thomas Dysarz. Fayette County Family Court Judge Kim Bunnell rejected the request last month, saying there was “insufficient evidence” to support an order placing restrictions on Dysarz’s interaction with Meehan.

The Lexington men made headlines in 2002 when they became parents to the three boys and one girl who were the biological children of Meehan and a surrogate mother, Brooke Verity of Nicholasville. A boy who was Dysarz’s biological son was born in January with the same surrogate mother.

Court records show separate addresses for the men. Meehan, a Lexington attorney, declined comment on Bunnell’s decision. Dysarz also declined comment.

Each man has custody of his biological children.

Verity could not be reached for comment, but has said that she initially agreed to conceive a child with Meehan through in vitro fertilization because she thought the men would be good parents. Verity, who has children of her own, tried unsuccessfully to terminate her parental rights to the quadruplets in court last year.

BOSTON (AP) – While Gov. Mitt Romney was in Washington arguing for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions, another high-profile Republican was in Boston delivering a homily at a gay wedding.

Former Gov. William F. Weld attended the wedding of his former revenue commissioner and college friend Mitchell Adams and chief of staff Kevin Smith.

Weld says he’s opposed to any constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage, but says there is room in the Republican Party for people with a variety of opinions.

In his testimony before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Romney said same-sex marriage “may affect the development of children and thereby future society as a whole.”

PARAMUS, N.J. (AP) – A movie theater reversed course just hours after it said it would no longer run advertisements for a group of parents supporting gay rights because of complaints.

The Loews Cineplex told the group it had changed its mind on the ads, which feature a rainbow background, overlaid with “Someone you know and love is lesbian or gay.”

While the company remained quiet on its rationale, the decision drew praise from the Bergen County chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

“This morning, when they pulled the ad, I felt like I’d been hit in the stomach with a fist,” Ellen Schwartz, the gay rights group’s former president, told The Record of Bergen County. “But they just called and told me they were reversing themselves, and now I feel wonderful!”

The public relations firm for Loews said corporate officials had no comment on the matter. And Screenvision Direct, the company that handles advertising for Loews, confirmed the change of heart but did not explain it.

The advertisements feature the support group’s logo and its hotline phone number. The 20-second ad began running June 11, and is to continue for 56 weeks at a cost of $7,932.

Under the contract, it is to cycle through three times before each screening in each of the theater’s 10 auditoriums. The ad’s copy is identical to one the group displayed on billboards four years ago.

Loews Cineplex Entertainment is one of the world’s largest theater exhibition companies, with 2,835 screens in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The company is privately owned.

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. (AP) – Mayor, house painter, gay rights advocate and now, one of the country’s most eligible bachelors.

Move over, George Clooney – New Paltz Mayor Jason West is one of America’s “50 Hottest Bachelors,” at least according to People Magazine.

“Oh my God, what was I thinking?” West said, when asked by the Times-Herald Record of Middletown about agreeing to the People interview.

A sometimes house painter who makes $18,000 a year as mayor, West finds himself among a highfalutin crowd on the bachelor’s list, which also includes Hollywood heartthrob Tom Cruise, Google billionaire Larry Page and Lord of the Rings star Orlando Bloom.

West first attracted national headlines in February when he presided over the marriages of more than two-dozen same-sex couples in his Hudson Valley village. He was subsequently charged with 19 misdemeanors relating to those weddings, but a judge last month dismissed the criminal charges against him.

A Green Party member, West said he initially refused the People interview, but advisers convinced him he could make a positive impression on the magazine’s 30 million readers.

“I was completely and utterly wrong,” he said.

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) – Two gay men sued by a dozen lawmakers seeking to uphold the state’s ban on same-sex marriages asked that the case be dismissed because the ban itself hasn’t been challenged.

Stephen Stahl, 55, and Robert Seneca, 48, filed papers seeking dismissal of the lawsuit filed by legislators who sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act.

“These two men did nothing to allow anyone to sue them,” said Cynthia Schneider, an attorney for Stahl and Seneca. “We are convinced that the real reason for the suit was to try to intimidate the community and to try to stop them from speaking out against a law that they think is unfair.”

The two had tried to apply for a marriage license in March at the Bucks County Courthouse. But Bucks County Register of Wills Barbara G. Reilly said she couldn’t legally accept an application for a same-sex union.

Seneca and Stahl said they would consider filing a lawsuit appealing her decision. But before that happened, Leonard G. Brown III, an attorney for 11 Republicans and one Democrat, filed suit seeking to have the law affirmed the two could seek to have it declared unconstitutional.

Brown said he hadn’t seen the response and declined to comment on it.