TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) – Despite a little-known state law restraining teachers from discussing homosexuality in a positive light, young people are finding ways to open their own dialogue regarding people’s beliefs.

Opponents of the law say the increasing number of students seeking places for discussion demonstrates a need for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender teens to talk in an environment where they feel safe. But proponents of the law say teachers have no business discussing what they say is not a positive lifestyle according to many religions.

Regardless, the young people most affected by the law are afraid to speak out on the record for fear of reprisal against themselves or their families. So they’re starting or attending already-existing Gay Straight Alliance groups, high school organizations aimed at educating youths on gay rights and discrimination.

Further clouding the issue of discussing discrimination or hate crimes against gays is the state law that precludes teachers from discussing homosexuality in a positive light. A report released last summer by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network gave Arizona a failing label for the law, which the network says stigmatizes people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

The law stipulates that no district shall include in its course of study instruction that promotes a homosexual lifestyle, portrays homosexuality as a positive alternative lifestyle, or suggests that some methods of homosexual sex are safe.

Part of the law is medically inaccurate, said Alan Storm, assistant superintendent for the Sunnyside Unified School District. Storm is the founder of the Tucson Chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and has supported students forming Gay Straight Alliances in Sunnyside schools.

“We’ve actually gone and testified several times before hearing committees in Phoenix,” Storm said. “All we’ve suggested is they strike that paragraph and put in that students shall be given medically accurate information.

“The right wing does not want that paragraph out of there,” he said.

While they say they’ve never heard of Arizona’s law on classroom discussion of homosexuality, many students – GLBT or heterosexual – are creating their own safe havens for information and/or discussion through Gay Straight Alliances or other student-organized groups. Sixteen such groups are now active in Tucson-area high schools.

“The Gay Straight Alliances are filling an important need for students who want spaces where they can talk about things,” said J.C. Olson, the youth program coordinator for Wingspan, a local gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender advocacy group. “The strength and number of those groups have been in part a result of young people needing a safe space.”

SAN BERNARDINO, California (AP) – An urban ministry that aids the poor and homeless had its official recognition removed by Lutheran church officials in a dispute over an associate pastor who is in a lesbian relationship.

The decision by the Pacifica Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which oversees congregations in parts of Southern California, marks the most severe punishment of a Lutheran congregation over the issue of homosexual clergy in more than a decade.

“We thought those days were over,” Pastor David Kalke, who leads the Central City Lutheran Mission, told the Los Angeles Times. “It appears conservatism has raised its ugly head here in Southern California, much to our surprise.”

Kalke said he intends to lead Central City as an independent Lutheran congregation.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America allows gay clergy only if they are celibate. Thirteen other congregations that have installed openly gay and lesbian pastors have received milder punishments.

Pacifica Synod Bishop Murray Finck said the Central City mission violated the church’s constitution when it installed Pastor Jenny Mason in April because Mason is not on the church’s official roster of recognized pastors. He said the Oct. 29 decision has nothing to do with Mason’s sexual orientation but also said Mason is not on the roster because she is gay and not celibate.

Discipline was once handled by the national church, but after a 1990 dispute with two San Francisco congregations that had installed openly gay clergy and were ultimately kicked out of the church, discipline became a matter that synods handled, said Greg Egertson, co-chair of Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries in San Francisco.

Since 1990, no congregations have been stripped of recognition for installing gay clergy. National church leaders are studying the issue ahead of an August meeting of the church’s National Assembly.

Egertson said the Pacifica Synod may be trying to send a message to the assembly.

“It’s out of step with what other synods are doing and it’s very badly timed,” he said.

Mason previously served 10 years as an officially recognized Lutheran pastor and missionary in Chile, but the church learned of her long-term relationship with another woman and forced her to resign in 2001.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – A year after a lesbian mother said her son was disciplined in a Lafayette, La., school for merely talking about what the word “gay” means, the teacher at the center of the dispute is fighting back with a lawsuit.

Terry L. Bethea and her husband Kenneth claim in their suit that the mother, Sharon Huff, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and several ACLU employees, publicly made numerous false claims. The Betheas say they suffered more than $50,000 in damages – including physical and emotional pain and damage to their reputations. They seek a jury trial in the lawsuit filed in state court here by former state Sen. Max Jordan.

Louisiana ACLU director Joe Cook, a defendant in the suit, called it a “SLAPP” – meaning “strategic lawsuit against public participation” – designed to keep Huff and the ACLU from speaking out.

“We won’t be silenced. We do not believe that this suit has merit and we plan to get it dismissed,” Cook said.

Jordan denied that the lawsuit was an intimidation ploy. “He can exercise whatever opinion he wants,” Jordan said. “This is because of reckless behavior on the part of the ACLU that defamed my client.”

Huff, through Cook, declined comment to The Associated Press. She told The (Lafayette, La.) Advertiser that Bethea’s lawyer had demanded an apology. “I didn’t feel like I should do it,” she said.

Jordan said that he has never talked with Huff. He did demand an apology from an ACLU attorney and did not get one, he said.

The lawsuit lists an array of accusations made publicly by Huff or the ACLU that the Betheas say are untrue. They include allegations that:

– Huff’s son was scolded in front of other second-graders.

– he was disciplined for using the word gay.

– he was forced to repeatedly write, “I will never use the word gay in school again.”

Huff’s accusations made national news and led to the teacher getting hate mail and telephone calls from around the nation, leading to her taking a sabbatical, the lawsuit said.

Jordan said he believes the defendants in the lawsuit knew the allegations were false and spread them to promote a political agenda. Asked for specifics, he noted that one of the defendants works for the ACLU Foundation Lesbian and Gay Rights Project and said “whatever agenda they might have.”

LANSING, Mich. (AP) – A state representative said he’s working on a measure to oppose health benefits for same-sex partners of state employees in new contracts for state workers that have been agreed to by the state and five labor unions.

Rep. Ken Bradstreet, R-Gaylord, also said he is writing a letter to Attorney General Mike Cox to ask whether it’s legal for the state to offer same-sex domestic partner benefits after Michigan voters approved a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

Bradstreet’s resolution would urge Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the Office of the State Employer to refrain from negotiating or approving any state contract with domestic partner healthcare benefits for same-sex couples.

“It’s unfathomable how, before the ballot boxes are hardly put away, some state leaders are going against citizens’ wishes to even consider this issue in the labor contract negotiations process,” Bradstreet said in a news release.

The state reached an agreement earlier this month with the labor unions on a new contract that take effect Oct. 1, 2005 and includes a 10-percent raise over three years.

The contract already has been overwhelmingly ratified by the United Auto Workers Local 6000, which represents nearly one-third of state workers.

Alan Kilar, legislative liaison for the UAW, said the union reached an agreement with the state in good faith and expects the state to stick with it.

“They agreed to this,” he said. “It’s a contract and an agreement is an agreement.”

PORTLAND, Ore. – Precinct figures released by Oregon counties provided a divided portrait of Portland area Democratic voters.

While Democratic nominee John Kerry won almost all the urban and nearby suburban precincts, results show that his backers parted ways on the controversial same-sex marriage ban.

Kerry received more than 90 percent of the vote in some inner-city precincts of southeast and northeast Portland, according to an analysis by The Oregonian newspaper.

But when it came to the heated ballot measure, many of the voters who brought Kerry his Oregon victory departed from the Democratic orthodoxy and helped provide the winning edge to the initiative, which banned same-sex marriage in Oregon.

Measure 36, which rewrote the state constitution to define marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman, passed in many blue-collar neighborhoods that supported the Massachusetts senator – such as in Milwaukie and in mid-Multnomah County.

But neighborhoods in more affluent close-in suburbs were less likely to back Measure 36.

Tim Nashif, the political director of The Defense of Marriage Coalition, the main group backing the measure, said the results are not surprising. He said voters in many blue-collar areas are culturally conservative and saw the issue in nonpartisan terms.