CONWAY, Ark. (AP) – A radio station took its regular morning show off the air as police investigated whether a producer gave a sexually explicit videotape to a 16-year-old bystander during a gay-rights parade.

Organizers of the parade – which started after organizers awoke to find cow manure spread along the parade route – complained to Conway police that the producer for KABZ-FM of Little Rock and a woman accompanying him offered all-male pornographic videos to protesters lining the route. A teenager received one of the tapes.

Lt. Danny Moody said officials were looking at possible felony or misdemeanor charges against the producer, whom the station identified by his on-air name, Phlip Satchel.

The station’s general manager, Philip Jonsson, said Satchel had worked there for about a year. Jonsson said he couldn’t remember the man’s real name.

Television news clips showed a man wearing a black Speedo-style swimsuit walking along the parade route announcing that he was giving away pornographic material and handing out DVDs.

The station carried a syndicated sports show Thursday and Friday mornings. Jonsson wouldn’t say whether other employees were involved or whether anyone would be disciplined.

Meanwhile, Conway police said a man turned himself in after learning he was being sought for spreading manure along the parade route.

Police said Wesley Bono, 35, of Greenbrier was charged with harassment. The city cleaned up the mess before the march began. Bono is to appear in district court on Aug. 2.

BURLINGTON, Iowa (AP) – City officials might ask residents directly if gay and lesbian citizens should be protected under the city’s anti-discrimination code.

Residents would not decide the issue for good, but rather register their opinions in a “straw vote” that would guide the city council in its ultimate decision, City Attorney Scott Power said.

The city’s Human Rights Commission first recommended adding sexual orientation to the anti-discrimination code in 2002. The proposal would bar discrimination against gay and lesbian residents in such areas as housing and employment.

The proposal has ignited controversy in the community ever since. Members of the city’s conservative Christian churches have clashed repeatedly at council meetings with members of the local chapters of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

“If you attend a council meeting where it’s been discussed, you’d have to be blind and deaf not to realize how divisive and polarizing the issue is,” Mayor Mike Edwards said.

“I’m just trying to find what all the options are and what’s available to us and hopefully come to some kind of consensus with the rest of the council as to what the best way to proceed would be,” he said.

Power said a straw poll vote by the public would not bind the council into following suit.

“The public could vote against it and the council could adopt it, anyway, or the public could vote for it and the council could vote it down,” Power said.

The council rejected the proposal in 2002, saying the city didn’t have the resources to investigate complaints of discrimination. Since then, several local attorneys have volunteered to provide the service for free.

The state of Iowa does not include gays and lesbians in its anti-discrimination laws, but a number of cities including Des Moines, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Davenport and Ames have such laws, and Dubuque is considering it.

The council is set to discuss the issue at its meeting, and could vote the following week on whether to send the question to the public. A vote is not likely until November of 2005, officials said.

“That would definitely give both sides enough time to get their message out and do their thing with it,” Edwards said.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) – Ten same-sex couples seeking to end the state’s ban on same-sex marriage filed suit in Palm Beach County circuit court.

The suit, which names 15th District Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy H. Wilken as a defendant, asks the court to assert “that the right to marry is fundamental and that any restrictions on fundamental rights are presumed unconstitutional.”

Two couples named as plaintiffs were denied marriage licenses. Miami attorney Ellis Rubin filed the suit two days later, adding to similar challenges he made in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

Despite the lawsuits, Florida is not considered a battleground state in the national debate over same-sex marriage. Since 1997, state laws have defined marriage as “a legal union between one man and one woman.”

But the suit argues that the ban on same-sex marriage sends “a stigmatizing message ... that leads to legal, social, financial and psychological injuries.”

Among the plaintiffs are the subjects of the award-winning documentary Ruthie & Connie: Every Room in the House. Ruth Berman and Connie Kurtz sued the New York City board of education in 1988 for domestic partner benefits, winning the case five years later. The couple moved to West Palm Beach last year.

Rubin says his pro bono legal efforts are atonement for representing anti-gay crusader Anita Bryant more than two decades ago. But some gay activists object to his methods.

Nadine Smith, executive director of the gay rights group Equality Florida, said she was “deeply troubled” that he is taking on the legal battle without conferring with the gay rights organizations that have been fighting for years.

BALTIMORE (AP) – The American Civil Liberties Union sued the city of Baltimore and four Maryland counties for the right of same-sex couples to marry.

The lawsuit was filed in Baltimore Circuit Court on behalf of nine couples and a man whose partner recently died. The couples had sought marriage licenses and were denied, said Ken Choe of the ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, based in New York.

Maryland law specifically defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

The ACLU also has pending legal challenges in Massachusetts, Oregon, New York, Washington state and California.

SANTA FE (AP) – Attorney General Patricia Madrid is urging the state’s highest court to reject a county clerk’s request to issue more marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Madrid, in written arguments filed with the state Supreme Court, asked the justices to toss out a pending request from Sandoval County Clerk Victoria Dunlap.

Dunlap wants the Supreme Court to dismiss a temporary restraining order preventing her from handing out more same-sex marriage licenses.

However, Madrid said Dunlap’s case is legally and procedurally flawed because it failed to provide any grounds for the court to decide the question of whether New Mexico law authorizes same-sex marriages.

The court hasn’t ruled on Dunlap’s request or scheduled a hearing in the case.

Dunlap issued more than 60 same-sex marriage licenses on Feb. 20, but stopped when Madrid declared that same-sex marriages were not legal under state law.

The same-sex marriage dispute remains pending in a case before state District Judge Louis P. McDonald.

The Supreme Court’s March 31 order, Madrid said, is not subject to rules and time limits that govern district court procedures for restraining orders in civil cases.

BEND, Ore. (AP) – Bend voters will get the chance this November to weigh in on an anti-discrimination ordinance that was unanimously approved in June by Bend City Council members.

A referendum to repeal the ordinance has qualified for the ballot, City Record Patty Stell announced. Two Bend residents began collecting signatures for the repeal vote immediately after the ordinance was passed.

The ordinance prevents discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Opponents of the referendum had until July 9 to file a challenge.

HOUSTON (AP) – A retired Continental Airlines flight attendant is challenging the airline’s refusal to allow his same-sex partner to use his spousal travel passes.

David Lee married David Vaillancourt on April 1 in Canada, which began recognizing same-sex nuptials in 2003.

That didn’t matter to the Houston-based airline when Lee asked that Vaillancourt be allowed to use his spousal travel passes he received after taking early retirement in 1989.

“I am sorry to have to decline your request,” wrote John Mitchell, a human resources official at Continental. “The provisions of the Early Out that you signed specifically do not include same-sex travel companions.”

The flight privilege includes six travel passes that allow the former employee and a spouse to travel together. The carrier said it takes its definition of “spouse” from the Internal Revenue Service.

However, the carrier allows current workers to name a same-sex partner on such passes. The rule, shared by Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, applies only to retirees.

Two other major airlines polled by the Houston Chronicle, American Airlines and United Airlines, offer travel benefits to same-sex partners of retirees.

Lee and Vaillancourt said they want equal footing with other couples, with travel benefits being only the first step.

“We are not going away. Gay marriage is not going away. None of this is going away,” said Lee, who lives in the Los Angeles area. “We are going to fight this to the end.”

Company spokesman Rahsaan Johnson said that because the IRS doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages, the benefit would be treated as taxable if the traveling companion was anyone besides a legal spouse or dependent.

“The bottom line is retirees have never had the option of putting someone on their travel benefits if that person was not a spouse recognized by the US government,” Johnson said.