BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) – The Bakersfield mayor’s plan to declare a local Gay Pride Day was overwhelmed by negative responses from the community – and he backed down.

Mayor Harvey Hall was going to make the proclamation during a Kern County Pride event Sept. 4, but his office was deluged with phone calls and email messages, he said. So he said he’d give in to the feelings of the majority of the community, though the opposition “disappointed” him.

“After much agonized deliberation, I have chosen to withdraw from presenting a Gay Pride proclamation,” he said in a statement.

Several people heard about the mayor’s intention at a local Baptist church, where members were encouraged to let city leaders know how they felt about the issue.

Valerie Carskaddon, who was at the church, said Hall had gone too far. She said most people in Bakersfield support “family values” and not a gay pride event.

Others were disappointed that the mayor gave in.

Whitney Weddell, who is organizing the Kern County Pride event, said he had hoped the mayor would get through the opposition.

KEAAU, Hawaii (AP) – A candidate for the state House planned to marry his same-sex partner in Canada Aug. 28.

Dennis Triglia filed nomination papers on July 7 to run as the Libertarian candidate for the Big Island seat held by Rep. Helene Hale, D-Pahoa-Kalapana.

Triglia was to marry Richard Charboneau, his partner of nearly nine years, in Vancouver, British Columbia, where same-sex couples can legally marry.

“Discrimination in civil marriage in Hawaii remains a profound barrier to achieving complete equality,” he said.

In 1998, Hawaii voters approved a constitutional amendment giving legislators the authority to limit state-recognized marriages to opposite-sex couples – which they already had done in 1994.

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) – Four gay and lesbian couples were denied marriage licenses at the Scott County courthouse, while Vice President Dick Cheney was blocks away commenting on the issue.

At an Aug. 24 rally, when a woman asked Cheney what he thought about same-sex marriage, he said it is an issue for his family because of his daughter, who is gay.

But Cheney said that historically, states have determined how marriage is defined.

As Cheney spoke, four same-sex couples walked into the Scott County Courthouse to apply for marriage licenses. They were denied.

Pat Hooper, 51, and Connie Jarvis, 53, both of Davenport, said they were told that Iowa law does not permit a marriage license to be issued to same-sex couples because state law defines a marriage between a man and woman.

Hooper said she and Jarvis were treated well by courthouse workers.

“I can’t say enough about how they presented themselves and how comfortable they made you feel,” Hooper said.

Joyce Wiley, the founder of Quad-Citians Affirming Diversity, accompanied the couples to the courthouse. She said it saddened her to see their applications denied.

“I expected the denial, I expected it all, but it still hits you, the unfairness, as couples walk out and say ‘Yes, we’re denied,’” she said.

CINCINNATI (AP) – Fifty-six percent of Ohio residents who said they are likely to vote in November would vote for a proposed state constitutional amendment to define marriage as “only a union between one man and one woman,” according to a statewide poll.

The Ohio Poll, sponsored and conducted by the University of Cincinnati’s Institute for Policy Research, found 40 percent of those surveyed said they would vote against the amendment and 4 percent were undecided.

Approximately one-third of likely voters had not heard of the proposed amendment, according to the poll.

TULSA, Okla. (AP) – About a month after a lesbian couple successfully filed for a tribal marriage application, the Cherokee National Tribal Council voted to clearly define marriage as between a man and a woman.

Principal Chief Chad Smith has indicated he will sign the measure, which was approved by the council Aug. 23.

The change to tribal marriage law would not affect Kathy Reynolds and Dawn McKinley, who were married last month in a Cherokee ceremony. Cherokee Nation laws are not retroactive.

A Cherokee Nation District Court scheduled a hearing to discuss a legal protest of McKinley’s and Reynolds’ marriage application. The outcome of that hearing will determine whether their union is legal.

After McKinley and Reynolds applied for the application May 13, Darrell Dowty, chief justice of the Judicial Appeals Tribunal, ordered a moratorium on marriages.

“If we don’t address this, we’ll have a flood of same-sex marriages,” O’Leary said. “This will be a black eye on the Cherokee Nation. Even the state of Oklahoma doesn’t allow same-sex marriage.”

The state of Oklahoma does not recognize marriages for same-sex couples but does honor marriages recorded by the Cherokees. The tribe handles only a few marriages a year.

CARBONDALE, Ill. (AP) – Southern Illinois University administrator Robert Cerchio said he is pleased the school has decided to extend health benefits to the domestic partners of GLBT employees because his longtime partner can buy his first health insurance policy in 25 years.

But Cerchio said he also is angry that Carbondale Chancellor Walter Wendler doesn’t support the decision because Wendler has said it encourages “sinful behavior.”

Officials at SIU’s campuses in Carbondale and Edwardsville told staff the partners of GLBT employees could start getting partial reimbursement for privately purchased health insurance by Sept. 1. While these partners won’t be covered under the school’s plan, their reimbursement will equal the cost of covering heterosexual spouses on the school’s plan.

SIU’s program will extend benefits only to the partners of GLBT employees because straight employees can get married, said Duane Stucky, SIU’s vice president of finance and administrative affairs.

He estimates the program will cost SIU between $50,000 and $70,000 a year, an amount he said is modest when compared to the university’s $700 million budget.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has reported that of the top 62 research universities in the nation, 46 of them provide health benefits to the same-sex partners of its staff.

Supporters say the program will help SIU attract top talent.

“If we are a global research university, then we need to reflect the values of our global population,” said Paulette Curkin, coordinator of student development and adviser to the Saluki Rainbow Network, a gay student group.

But not everyone approves of the plan.

Republican Rep. Mike Bost, whose district includes the Carbondale campus, believes it will invite lawsuits from heterosexual couples who don’t qualify for the reimbursement.

“And I object on moral grounds,” he said. Bost said he also objected when the state extended similar coverage in a new contract for 37,000 state workers in July.

Wendler told a local newspaper in July that he opposed extending the benefits because of his Evangelical Christian beliefs.

Wendler told The Associated Press that although he opposes homosexuality and extending the benefits, he said his beliefs don’t make him unfair or disrespectful of individuals’ rights.

BOSTON (AP) – A woman who agreed to have a child with her lesbian partner, but split up with the mother before the baby’s birth, cannot be forced to pay child support, the state’s highest court ruled.

The split ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court – which legalized same-sex marriage in a landmark ruling last year – comes in the case of a Hampshire County lesbian couple, identified in court documents as “T.F.” and “B.L.,” who lived together from 1996 to 2000.

B.L. at first resisted T.F.’s wishes to have a child, but later changed her mind.

The couple broke up after T.F. got pregnant by artificial insemination. After the baby was born, T.F. sued her former partner for child support. A Probate and Family Court judge turned to the state Appeals Court, which in turned passed the case up to the Supreme Judicial Court.

Associate Justice Judith A. Cowin wrote that the informal agreement between the two women to have a child together did not constitute an enforceable contract, and B.L. can’t be forced to pay child support.

Three justices – including Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, who wrote the ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in Massachusetts – disagreed with the majority conclusion, saying that the implied contract between the women is enforceable.

“The child may have been abandoned by the defendant, but he should not be abandoned by the court,” Justice John M. Greaney wrote in the dissent.