DETROIT (AP) – A lawsuit challenging a recent attorney general’s opinion that bans public employers from offering benefits to same-sex couples in future contracts was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.

The lawsuit, filed in Ingham County Circuit Court, asks the court to rule that Proposal 2 does not bar government employers from providing health insurance and other benefits to employees’ same-sex partners and their children.

“We are filing this lawsuit today on behalf of the many men and women in Michigan with children who very much need healthcare but who stand to lose their benefits because supporters of Proposal 2 are pushing to make [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] families into second-class citizens,” said Kary Moss, ACLU of Michigan executive director.

Those bringing the suit include a Washington-based AFL-CIO group called National Pride at Work that backs gay rights; Kalamazoo city employees; workers at state universities; and employees at various state agencies and departments.

All 21 of the couples represented in the suit currently rely on domestic partner benefits for healthcare coverage, the ACLU said. Six of the couples have dependent children and three chose to relocate to Michigan because the employer offered domestic partner benefits.

Proposal 2, which Michigan voters approved 59 percent to 41 percent in November, said a union between one man and one woman “shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.”

The ACLU says in the lawsuit, which names Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm as the defendant, that U.S. courts have held that providing health insurance to same-sex domestic partners does not constitute recognition of a marriage or a similar union and is necessary for employers to attract qualified workers.

The ACLU also argues in the suit that the intent of voters was not to deny the families of gays and lesbians health insurance or other benefits. The suit says the ballot committee that sponsored Proposal 2 “consistently and repeatedly” assured voters that the initiative was only about protecting marriage.

Jeffrey Montgomery, executive director of the Triangle Foundation, a gay rights group, said same-sex benefits should be protected because domestic partnerships are not equivalent to marriage. Same-sex couples do not get more than 1,000 rights and protections that married people receive, he said.

“Just six or seven things are afforded in a domestic partnership arrangement,” he said. “I don’t see how anybody in their wildest imagination could describe that as similar to marriage. It just isn’t.”

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox issued his first legal interpretation of the amendment, saying that Kalamazoo’s policy of offering health and retirement benefits to same-sex partners violates the amendment.

Cox spokesperson Allison Pierce said she could not comment because she had not reviewed the lawsuit.

Cox, a Republican, said his opinion does not apply to existing contracts.

Kalamazoo’s policy gives domestic partnerships a “marriage-like” status, Cox said. Given the constitutional amendment’s broad language, conferring benefits recognizes the validity of same-sex relationships, he ruled.

Cox said Proposal 2 also prohibits recognition of unmarried opposite-sex relationships.

In the absence of a ruling from a court, the attorney general’s interpretation of the law generally is binding.

However, the Michigan Court of Appeals could hear a Proposal 2-based challenge to same-sex benefits early next month.

Cox said giving benefits itself does not violate Proposal 2. Governments could offer benefits to people designated by employees. But they couldn’t be based on a union similar to marriage, he said.

Gary Glenn, president of the Midland-based American Family Association of Michigan, said the Cox opinion validated what his group had said before and after the election.

It is unclear how Cox’s opinion might affect universities that offer same-sex benefits. The schools have argued the constitution gives them autonomy to make those sorts of decisions.

Proposal 2 also could affect state employees.

In early December, the Granholm administration decided to not offer benefits to same-sex couples – which were included in new labor contracts – until a court ruled on their legality.

Granholm spokesperson Liz Boyd said the governor was pleased the issue had reached the legal system.

“We will now await an interpretation of this matter with the hope of an outcome that allows us to provide healthcare to all of our employees and their families,” Boyd said.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) – New Jersey gay rights advocates are hoping a California court’s ruling in support of same-sex marriage means a similar decision is pending here.

A San Francisco Superior Court judge recently struck down that state’s law stating marriage must be between one man and one woman.

In New Jersey, an appeals court is expected to decide soon whether equal-protection provisions of the state Constitution allow same-sex couples to marry. That constitutional argument is very similar to the one that prevailed in California and early this year in New York, activists said.

“In the past 24 hours I have been inundated with phone calls from people who are almost pinching themselves saying, ‘This could happen here,’” said Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality, shortly after the California Superior Court ruling.

Lawyers for seven New Jersey same-sex couples made their case to an appeals court in December. That came a year after a Mercer County Superior Court judge ruled there is no fundamental right to same-sex marriage under state or federal law. The couples hailed from across New Jersey, and had been turned down when they applied for marriage licenses in their hometowns.

New Jersey Assistant Attorney General Patrick DeAlmeida, who argued for the state in December, said the West Coast case would be of limited value here. The Legislature, not the judiciary, should make the final decision about same-sex marriage, he said.

That’s an argument seconded by state Sen. Gerald Cardinale, R-Bergen, who said that judges who try to rewrite public policy should be impeached.

“The court in New Jersey is a wild card,” Cardinale said. “They’ll do whatever they think they can get away with.”

A few years ago Cardinale introduced a bill that would define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. He said it never came up for debate.

Same-sex couples should have certain domestic partner rights, although not the right to adopt, Cardinale said. But his far bigger beef is with judges who he says overstep their bounds.

Should New Jersey’s three-judge panel opt not to follow California’s lead, it could be because it fears the public would then realize that New Jersey judges frequently rewrite the Constitution on far less attention-getting matters, he said.

“The public is so much on record as against gay marriage, to make that decision would expose what’s going on the court system,” Cardinale said.

But Goldstein said support for the gay and lesbian community is high and rising, and pointed to the standing-room crowds that crammed into meetings across New Jersey last year to learn about the state’s domestic partnership legislation.

San Francisco’s Superior Court ruling, Goldstein said, “is a siren call to thousands upon thousands of gay activists across the state that it’s no longer a long shot, that marriage equality will carry the day.”

SANTA FE (AP) – A pair of teenagers and three men accused of beating a gay man pleaded not guilty in the case that the state plans to prosecute as a hate crime.

David Trinidad, 17; Joseph Cano, 18; Gabriel Maturin, 20; Jonathan Valdez, 23; and Paul Montoya, 20, all of Santa Fe, entered their pleas before state District Judge Stephen Pfeffer.

Isaia Medina, 19, also of Santa Fe, pleaded not guilty in the case March 11.

James Maestas, 21, of Santa Fe, was beaten unconscious Feb. 27 in the parking lot of a Santa Fe motel.

He suffered a broken nose, facial cuts, a concussion and internal injuries, said Deputy District Attorney Shari Weinstein.

“This is the pure definition of a hate crime,” she said. “It affects the entire community because it instills a sense of fear that anyone can be preyed upon at any time.”

Tom Clark, Maturin’s attorney, urged Pfeffer to look past the hype and politics surrounding the case so his client and the others could have a fair trial.

“I want [them] tried by the court and the state, not in the court of public opinion because the court of public opinion is notoriously uninformed,” Clark said.

Prosecuting a case under the New Mexico Hate Crimes Act, signed into law in 2003, allows a year of prison time to be tacked on to each felony charge proved by prosecutors.

All six defendants are charged with aggravated battery, conspiracy to commit aggravated battery and criminal damage to property.

Medina is additionally charged with kidnapping and contributing to the delinquency of a minor; Trinidad and Maturin also are charged with battery; and Maturin, Montoya, Valdez and Cano also are charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

The trial for all six defendants is scheduled for Aug. 30.

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (AP) – A 30-year member of a Unitarian Universalist church was arrested for vandalizing its property with anti-gay messages.

Matthew Fox, 49, of Binghamton, was charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief and ordered to have no contact with church officials.

But police said he called the Rev. Douglas Taylor, prompting a second-degree criminal contempt charge.

The church discovered vandalism to a banner on the front lawn that said, “Civil marriage is a civil right.” An anti-gay statement was also chiseled into the sidewalk.

Investigators said Fox admitted to committing the vandalism.

Taylor said Fox had spoken to him about his objection to the church being open to those of all sexual orientations.

“Earlier this week, I was angry. But that has shifted to deep sadness,” Taylor said. “Maybe there was something more I could have done.”

CLEVELAND, Ga. (AP) – A club for gays and supportive classmates apparently will be allowed at White County High School, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia says.

The ACLU said negotiations led to an agreement in which school officials will “drop their attempts to stop” the group.

“We’ve received assurances from the school attorney they have decided to allow the club to form,” said Beth Littrell, an ACLU attorney.

The new group, called Peers Rising in Diversity Education, has submitted bylaws and is working toward becoming a recognized club, School Superintendent Paul Shaw said.

Shaw said school attorneys had dealt with questions of policy and the federal Equal Access Act.

Littrell said bylaws and other requirements had been met for weeks.

Controversy has dogged the county since some students asked in January to form what then was called the Gay-Straight Alliance. About 250 people attended a Board of Education meeting Feb. 24 when the board delayed a decision on recognizing the club, which goes by PRIDE.

Club secretary Charlotte Hammerson said her group, which had six members as of early this month, remains misunderstood.

“We’re a gay-straight alliance, but people don’t see it that way,” she said. “They don’t see the straight part, they only see gay.”

SALEM, Ore. (AP) – The Oregon Supreme Court upheld the murder convictions and death sentence of Robert Acremant, who admitted killing a lesbian couple in 1995 for money prosecutors say he wanted to use to rekindle a relationship with a Las Vegas stripper.

Acremant pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, kidnapping and robbery in the Dec. 4, 1995, slayings of Roxanne Ellis, 53, and Michelle Abdill, 42, after they refused to give him money from their property management business.

Prosecutors said Acremant killed the women in a desperate attempt to rob them of money he wanted to spend on a stripper whom he called his girlfriend.

Acremant made conflicting statements about why he killed the women. He told police at one point that, while he did not like lesbians, he killed the women for money.

The murders alarmed the gay community because Ellis and Abdill had worked on the campaign that defeated a statewide measure to limit the rights of gays and lesbians.

Acremant lured the women to a Medford duplex apartment, where he tied and gagged them with duct tape. He shot them twice in the head after forcing them to lie in the back of a pickup truck, which was discovered with the bodies in a Medford parking lot three days later.

Acremant also was convicted of murder in California for the 1995 slaying of Scott George of Visalia, the son of a friend of Acremant’s mother.

The Oregon Supreme Court rejected various claims by Acremant in the appeal, including that he should be granted a new sentencing trial because a court reporter accidentally erased 90 minutes of the tape of his trial. He claimed that made an insufficient record for the appeal.

The Supreme Court said the erased part of the tape accounted for only a very short part of the trial and that the lower court was able to reconstruct much of the missing record from affidavits and other materials.

Acremant “fails to make a persuasive argument that the missing transcript will prevent review by this court of any error or miscarriage of justice,” the Supreme Court said.

Death sentences by law are automatically reviewed by the Supreme Court.

Acremant left his $50,000-a-year job with a trucking company to start his own software business, which failed, according to evidence in the case. Prosecutors said his downfall began with his interest in the stripper.

Managers at the Rodeway Express trucking company testified they were impressed with Acremant, who became a district operations manager working on efficiency improvements.

Alla Kosova, the Las Vegas stripper whom Acremant said was his girlfriend, testified that their relationship was based only on money.

She said he spent about $3,000 a weekend on her at the strip joint, gave her diamond earrings and took her out to an occasional movie or dinner but that they never had sex.

Acremant wrote a letter to his hometown newspaper, The Record of Stockton, Calif., several weeks before he pleaded guilty to the murders, saying that he killed the women out of hate for homosexuals.

He said he invented the robbery motive because he was nervous about how other jail inmates would react “in that, they were hate crimes against bi- and homosexuals.

“Now I just don’t care what people think, including the jury,” the letter said. “They can kill me for all I care. I’ve never liked life anyway.”

A prosecutor said he believed Acremant was “grandstanding” and “publicity hungry.”

GROVE CITY, Pa. (AP) – A therapist contends that he was kicked off an insurance company advisory panel because of his belief that gays and lesbians can change their orientation.

Warren Throckmorton, a counselor and psychology professor at Grove City College, said he was told last month he could no longer be on Magellan Health Services Inc.’s national professional advisory council.

Throckmorton said that the chief medical officer, Alex Rodriguez, told him the company didn’t need the controversy.

Rodriguez was not available for comment, but Magellan spokesperson Mela Kucera said the company was concerned that Throckmorton’s views could be controversial and distracting for the council. Magellan manages mental-health benefits for 57.1 million people.

Throckmorton considers homosexuality a response to upbringing and other experiences in interaction with temperament. He said he doesn’t believe that people are born gay and that some people can modify their sexual behaviors according to their religious or moral beliefs.

“They’re not slaves to their sexual feelings,” he said.

Throckmorton had served on Magellan’s council for five years and was asked last fall to extend his term another year. The extension was rescinded.

Rob Gerst, a counselor at a Christian agency in Little Rock, Ark., who knows Throckmorton, said he fears for therapists with other controversial views and added that excluding Christians from provider panels could be next.

Kucera said Magellan therapists are chosen using objective criteria such as training and licensing.

“We have really no way of knowing what a provider’s views are,” she said.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Two-thirds of the members serving on an expert medical panel investigating a U.S.-funded AIDS study are receiving grant money from the federal agency at the center of the probe, according to documents and interviews.

The Institute of Medicine said it was aware of the financial ties with six of the nine members of its expert panel but approved their participation because they have special expertise, receive only a minority of their overall funding from the National Institutes of Health and won their grants competitively.

The six panel members are receiving funds from NIH ranging from $120,000 to nearly $2 million a year, according to agency records and interviews by The Associated Press.

IOM, the nation’s health adviser, believes the panel’s ultimate conclusions about NIH’s controversial AIDS study in Africa won’t affect the members’ NIH funding, and thus there is no conflict of interest, spokesperson Christine Stencel said.

“When you get into some of these fields or areas, you are not talking about a really huge pool of experts who can be candidates or experts,” Stencel said.

“In this case a lot of the great candidates potentially would have had funding from NIH. … Do you keep off of your committee every great expert out there because they can’t have a single penny from NIH or do you strive for a balance, keeping any possible connection like that to an absolute best possible minimum?” she said.

Stencel said IOM rejected two other potential members because they received a majority of their funding from NIH or drug companies tied to AIDS research.

The chair of the Senate Finance Committee said he is concerned the researchers’ financial ties to NIH create a conflict of interest that sullies any conclusions they make.

“If there’s financial interest, there’s a conflict, and that’s a factor to consider when sizing up objectivity,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

Frequently the government has appointed experts to scientific panels even though they had connections to the issues, companies or agencies they were investigating. For instance, federal drug regulators recently acknowledged that some advisory panel members who recommended painkillers stay on the market had ties to the makers of the drug.

Legal and medical ethicists said IOM likely didn’t violate any laws but should have done more to alert the public to the financial conflicts in the NIH case, especially because the panel members have an ongoing financial relationship with the agency.