DENVER (AP) – Republicans May 3 failed to get a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage on the November ballot after opponents called it an attempt to write discrimination into the state constitution.

Rep. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, said recent attempts by gays and lesbians in other states to get legal recognition of their civil unions threaten the institution of marriage, which Lundberg said is clearly defined as a union between a man and a woman. He said voters should make the final decision.

“It’s a referred ballot measure because we should let the voters decide. I’m not asking you to make the decision, I’m simply asking that we put this before the people of Colorado,” Lundberg told the House Judiciary Committee.

The committee killed the measure on a 6-5 party line vote after Democrats said it was unconstitutional and would cost taxpayers to defend in court if it passed.

Cathryn Hazouri, representing the American Civil Liberties Union, said the measure would probably face a court challenge if lawmakers tried to put it on the ballot.

“It’s just plain wrong to write discrimination into the constitution,” she told lawmakers.

She said the title of the referred measure mentioned nothing about civil unions, which would also be excluded.

“Clearly this is a deceptive title,” she said.

Lundberg said voters are smart enough to figure out what it meant.

Last year, Lundberg failed to get a majority of members in the Republican-controlled House to back GOP Rep. Marilyn Musgrave’s proposed same-sex marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Michael Brewer, spokesperson for Equal Rights Colorado, said the state already has a statutory ban on legal recognition of same-sex marriage. In 2000, lawmakers and Gov. Bill Owens approved a “Defense of Marriage Act” restricting marriage to between one man and one woman.

Supporters said a constitutional amendment is needed because the statute could be easily overturned in court or by the Legislature.

Last November, 11 states outlawed same-sex marriage. Religious groups are supporting similar measures in about 15 other states over the next two years.

COCOA BEACH, Fla. (AP) – Jack Nichols, a writer and editor who was a pioneering member of the gay rights movement in the United States, died May 2. He was 67.

Nichols died at Cape Canaveral Hospital of complications from cancer, according to his friend, Steve Yates, who said Nichols had battled cancer for 20 years.

“Jack was among the gay pioneers who stepped out of a debilitating closet and helped crack the cocoon of invisibility,” said Malcolm Lazin, executive director of Equality Forum, a Philadelphia-based gay rights group.

Nichols helped found chapters of the Mattachine Society, an early support group for gays, in Florida and Washington, D.C., in the early and mid-1960s. He also helped plan some of the nation’s first organized, annual gay and lesbian civil rights demonstrations, including a protest outside Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on July 4, 1965.

In addition, Nichols was among the first gay activists to challenge the American Psychiatric Association’s position that homosexuality was a mental illness.

In 1967, he appeared as a self-identified gay male in a groundbreaking CBS documentary on homosexuality, Lazin said.

From 1969 to 1973, Nichols and his partner, the late Lige Clark, were editors of GAY, America’s first gay weekly newspaper. The two also wrote a nonfiction memoir called I Have More Fun with You than Anybody.

Nichols wrote several other books, including Men’s Liberation: A New Definition of Masculinity and The Gay Agenda: Talking Back to the Fundamentalists. His most recent book, published last year, was The Tomcat Chronicles: Erotic Adventures of a Gay Liberation Pioneer.

From 1997 to 2004 he edited the Internet news magazine GayToday.com.

“Everyone who met him felt like he was there for just them,” said Yates, his friend since 1962, when the two met in Miami. “Beyond gay rights, he was a human rights advocate. That was his true goal.”

Nichols is survived by his mother, Mary F. Lund, 90, and several cousins, according to Yates, who is planning the funeral.

GREENBELT, Md. (AP) – Two groups filed a federal lawsuit to block a health curriculum that would allow discussions of homosexuality with eighth graders, and a video to be shown to sophomores demonstrating how to use a condom.

Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum and the Virginia-based Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays want to prevent Montgomery County from starting the program in six schools.

The new program, approved by the county board of education in November, would be used in all schools next year.

“In general, parents have been supportive of the curriculum,” said spokesperson Brian Edwards.

Parents must sign permission forms for their children to take part in the health curriculum and parents can sit in on the sessions. Families also can choose alternatives that include abstinence-only programs.

County educators say the changes were needed to teach students about the dangers of unprotected sex. However, those suing argue the county does not do enough to stress abstinence or allow people the groups describe as formerly gay to present their views.

BOSTON (AP) – The Massachusetts high court heard a bid May 2 to halt same-sex couples from marrying in the state until residents can vote on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages next year.

The lawyer for C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, argued the marriages interfere with voters’ ability to participate in the “robust debate” that is required on such an issue.

But justices, even two who dissented in the 2003 decision that legalized same-sex marriages, seemed skeptical.

“How has the full and robust public discourse been inhibited?” asked Justice Robert Cordy, one of the dissenters in 2003. “It seems to me, if anything, it’s been enlivened on this subject … I don’t see how it gets inhibited by the fact that the court has made a constitutional ruling.”

Around 5,000 same-sex couples have married in the state since the Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling took effect in May 2004.

Last March, the state Legislature approved a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage. Lawmakers must pass the measure a second time, either this year or next, before it can reach the statewide ballot in November 2006.

Justice Roderick Ireland rejected Doyle’s arguments last year. It was heard on appeal by the full court, which did not immediately rule.

Justice Martha Sosman, who wrote the 2003 dissenting opinion, said that unless it’s proven that Ireland erred in his ruling, then “that’s the end of it.”

The justices didn’t ask any questions of an attorney for the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, nor of state assistant attorney general John Hitt, who later declined to comment.

GLAD lawyer Michele Granda said she was confident the court would rule against Doyle.

Doyle’s attorney, Chester Darling, expressed similar sentiments. “It was a little negative, from our point of view,” he said.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – The United Methodist Church will ask its highest court for the right to defrock a lesbian minister who told her congregation that she was in a relationship with another woman.

Irene “Beth” Stroud was ousted last year for violating the denomination’s ban on “self-avowed, practicing homosexual” clergy. A church appeals panel voted April 29 to set aside that decision.

The Rev. Thomas Hall, the counsel for the church, said he consulted with eastern Pennsylvania Bishop Marcus Matthews, who decided to move forward with an appeal. The church will be crafting a letter of appeal to be submitted to its Judicial Council.

“We’re just saying that we felt an egregious error was committed at the appellate level,” Hall said.

The case, which may not be reviewed until October, stems from Stroud’s announcement two years ago to her Philadelphia congregation that she was living in a committed relationship with a woman.

She was defrocked in December, meaning that she could no longer serve communion or conduct baptisms. A church council successfully argued she had violated the “clear, unambiguous” gay-clergy ban when she publicly revealed her relationship.

The appeals panel ruled that the evidence against Stroud was “overwhelming,” but said she was denied due process in her trial because Methodist bodies, including the General Conference, had not properly defined terms related to the ban on gay clergy, such as the meaning of “practicing homosexual.”

“We knew that there would be another step,” said Jana Moore, a spokesperson for Stroud. “In no way are we surprised. We are prepared.”

Stroud said she met with Matthews and that he offered to appoint her as an associate pastor at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown with full rights and responsibilities of an ordained elder. But she said she told him she wanted to remain a lay person until her case ends.

“When I put my robes back on, whether it’s at the conclusion of the judicial process or in a number of years when the General Conference changes this unjust legislation, I want that to be a sacred trust among me, God and the larger church,” Stroud said in a statement. “I don’t want my ordination to be a symbol of who is on the winning or losing side of a controversy at any given moment.”

Matthews said in a statement that the appeal will be filed by May 29, within the 30-day deadline. The Judicial Council normally meets twice a year, during the last week in April and the last week in October.