PHOENIX (AP) – Gov. Janet Napolitano says a state constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage isn’t necessary but it would be better to have voters decide the issue sooner rather than later.

Napolitano said an alternative to waiting for the November 2006 election, as proposed by amendment supporters, would be to hold a special election this year.

“I’m just asking the question,” Napolitano said when asked during a press conference about her position, reported the same day by The Arizona Republic.

Napolitano reiterated that she is opposed to same-sex marriage but said she thinks an amendment is unnecessary since a ban included in state law already has been ruled constitutional.

Conservative social activists and key state lawmakers have said they plan to pursue a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages in Arizona.

Republicans reacted to the Democratic governor’s comments on the timing of a public vote as a political ploy to keep a same-sex marriage referendum off the 2006 ballot because it could bring more conservative voters to the polls.

“This is political chicanery. She doesn’t want it on the ballot in 2006 because it brings out the wrong people for her,” said Senate President Ken Bennett, R-Prescott. “It’s not so much urgent as it is important. To spend about $3 million in taxpayer money to have a special election when far fewer people will vote is wrong.”

The Secretary of State’s Office has estimated that a statewide special election this year would cost up to $4 million.

Arizona is among 38 states with a Defense of Marriage Act, which limits marriage to one man and one woman.

Defining marriage as between a man and a woman would help prevent a judge from overturning the ban in state law.

“An amendment in the state constitution is much stronger than a simple statute. This sends a good message,” said state Sen. Mark Anderson, R-Mesa.

Anderson said a legislative vote on the 2006 referendum should take place early in the 2005 session. “The idea is to get it done early and get it out of here,” he said.

Sen. Ken Cheuvront, one of two openly gay state lawmakers, said the same-sex marriage ban is pure politics.

“The reality is that Republicans are doing this to embarrass her [Napolitano],” said Cheuvront, D-Phoenix. “By them waiting until 2006, it shows their hypocrisy. This will be a very contentious issue, no matter when it happens.”

Napolitano declined to state a position on civil unions or whether she would urge voters to support an amendment. “I don’t make any comment until I see actual language,” she said.

The proposed amendment may include both a definition of marriage as between one man and one woman as well as restrictions against giving benefits of marriage to other unions, Center for Arizona Policy lobbyist Cathi Herrod said.

“Civil union is another word for marriage,” Herrod said.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) – Less than two months after the Topeka City Council approved an ordinance banning discrimination against gays and lesbians in city hiring, opponents have collected enough signatures to force the city to either rescind the ordinance or put it to a citywide vote.

The Shawnee County elections commissioner confirmed that petitions fighting the ordinance contained more than the 3,709 signatures of registered city voters required for certification.

Petitioners filed the signatures for review by the elections office on Dec. 15. Shirley Phelps-Roper, a member of Westboro Baptist Church, which spearheaded the petition drive, said the petitions contained 6,333 names. The central Topeka church, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., pickets across the nation, carrying signs with slogans such as, “God hates fags.”

City Attorney Brenden Long has said that if the petitions are certified, the city has 20 days to decide whether to rescind the ordinance or put it before voters. A vote would have to come within 90 days. If approved, the measure would not only rescind the ordinance but try to prevent council members from passing a similar one in the future.

The city council voted 5-4 on Nov. 16 to pass the ordinance, which had originally also banned discrimination in housing and public accommodations.

Phelps-Roper said Westboro Baptist Church circulated the petitions to its members and to other churches.

“It was our pleasure to put in that time of community service, so now this community can say what they want to say about this matter, then maybe we can call this good for a while,” she said.

Councilmember Tiffany Muller, who helped sponsor the original measure, said she hoped voters would learn more about the measure before casting their ballots. She said many people who signed the petition didn’t understand what it did and said they were tricked into signing it.

County Election Commissioner Elizabeth Ensley said 64 people asked that their names be removed from the petition after it was submitted.

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) – A bill to legalize same-sex marriage in Maine has generated passion in the State House, though its passage remains unlikely.

Key lawmakers said the bill, introduced by Republican Rep. Brian Duprey of Hampden, will be defeated. Even Duprey, who introduced the bill at the request of a constituent he was asked not to identify, said he will vote it down.

Duprey also said he will push for a constitutional amendment to keep the Legislature from legalizing same-sex marriages in the future.

Lee Umphrey, a spokesperson for Gov. John Baldacci, said he believes Duprey’s bill is ill timed. The Legislature should first enact measures to prevent discrimination of gays and lesbians, an agenda Baldacci has pushed.

“That needs to happen before anything else happens,” Umphrey said.

Baldacci’s bill would bar discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, credit, housing and public accommodations, but the governor’s bill would not legalize same-sex marriage.

Equality Maine, the state’s leading advocacy group for the GLBT community, considered putting in a same-sex marriage bill this year but decided against it because “the timing just is not right,” said its executive director, Betsy Smith.

Smith said her agency will not take a position on Duprey’s marriage bill until the group meets to discuss it, but she hinted that lawmakers might be right in predicting defeat of Duprey’s bill.

House majority leader Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, said even if the bill fails as expected, he believes Duprey’s legislation may help GLBT activists in other ways.

Duprey’s bill will open a public dialogue in Maine on legalizing same-sex marriage, which could benefit supporters in the long run, Cummings said.

In the short term, Cummings said, a legislative debate on same-sex marriage this year may help Baldacci push his anti-discrimination bill.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – The Philadelphia Bar Association will honor its new leader, the first openly gay person to hold the position in the bar’s 202-year history, at its annual Chancellor’s Reception this week.

Andrew A. Chirls, who will hold the post through 2005, is a partner at the Philadelphia firm WolfBlock, where he specializes in commercial and trial torts law. He lives in Philadelphia with longtime partner Larry Frankel, the legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.

More than 1,000 people are expected to attend the event at the Park Hyatt at the Bellevue.

Chirls is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California’s Boalt Hall School of Law.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) – Condemned inmate James Porter was executed Jan. 4 for fatally beating a convicted child molester nearly five years ago while in prison.

Porter, who dropped his appeals and ordered nothing be done to stop the first execution of the year in the nation’s most active capital punishment state, apologized to the relatives of his victims and expressed love to his family.

Porter, 33, from Lake Dallas, was sentenced to die for using a smuggled rock wrapped in a pillowcase to fatally pummel fellow prisoner Rudy Delgado, 40.

Porter’s lawyer, Robin Norris, said Porter had been advised that attorneys were ready to help him, even at the last minute.

Porter already was serving a 45-year term for the 1995 shooting death of a transient in Denton County when he attacked Delgado in May 2000 at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Telford Unit near Texarkana. Delgado, who also was stabbed and kicked, was serving a 15-year term for sexually assaulting a child in Dallas County.

“I believe he was taken out too easy,” Anna Acevedo said after watching her brother’s killer die. “He didn’t feel the same pain my brother did. I would have been happy to see him feel the same pain my brother felt. His apology wasn’t good enough for me.”

Porter said Delgado was gay and made a pass at him, which the former white supremacist didn’t appreciate.

“What I done is what I done,” Porter told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “I’d taken a 2-pound rock to somebody’s head and spread them all over the place. I guess at that time, I just lost all my cool and didn’t care anymore.”

He wrote letters to James Elliott, the Bowie County prosecutor handling his capital murder trial, referring to his victim in epithets and said he should be applauded for ridding society of a child molester.

Elliott used the letters at Porter’s trial, telling jurors the convicted murderer was boasting and proud of killing Delgado.

“In a way, I was,” Porter said from death row. “That dude never touched any little boys again.”

In another letter, Porter warned he would murder again and didn’t care if it was another prisoner or a corrections officer.

“The letter where he said ‘I’m going to kill again the next chance I get’ was fairly convincing,” Elliott said.

Norris said Porter had a difficult childhood that included being raped. He ran away from home when he was about 14 and linked up with supremacists who shared his hatred of gays, Norris said. In prison, Porter claimed allegiance to white gangs and acquired extensive tattoos, including letters that spell “HATE” on four fingers of his right hand.

“I’m over that,” Porter said. “I’ve kind of stepped out. There’s too much ignorance that comes with it.”

He said he eventually realized he was wrong to re-punish Delgado “for something he was already punished for.”

Porter was one of at least nine men in Texas with execution dates already this year, including four in January. The state carried out 23 executions last year.