SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Many lesbians have taken a term once commonly used to insult them and made it something of a badge of honor – but they’re having a tough time persuading the federal government that it’s no longer offensive.

The “Dykes on Bykes” motorcycle club, which leads San Francisco’s annual Pride parade, has spent two years sparring with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in hopes of protecting the phrase. The office has twice rejected the group’s application, saying that “dyke” is a vulgar term.

“We self-identify as dykes on bikes,” said Vic Germany, president of the group, whose official name is the San Francisco Women’s Motorcycle Contingent. The group has appealed the patent office’s latest rejection to a trial panel within the government agency.

The Patent Office has changed with the times when it comes to other words – last year it granted the Bravo Network a trademark for the hit television show “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”

But Jessie Roberts, a federal trademark administrator, says “dyke” remains offensive to the general public, including a significant number of lesbians. Even Webster’s dictionary says it’s “often used disparagingly.”

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) – A former gay porn actor and real estate agent suspected in seven rapes in Colorado and Texas died July 13 after hanging himself in his jail cell.

Bradford Wagner, 37, of Glenwood Springs, was found unconscious, hanging by his neck from a sheet in his cell, Boulder County sheriff’s spokesperson Lt. Phil West said in a news release. He was pronounced dead at Boulder Community Hospital and coroner Thomas Faure ruled Wagner’s death a suicide.

Wagner, who had been held in the jail since his arrest in June 2004, had not been considered a suicide risk, West said. A message left after hours for Wagner’s lawyer, Wilbur Smith, was not immediately returned.

The real estate agent was arrested after police said they linked him to four rapes at a Boulder apartment complex during the 1990s by surreptitiously collecting DNA samples from him. An undercover officer posing as a homebuyer collected DNA samples from Wagner, his car, his home and his bicycle.

Wagner had been charged in a 1994 rape in Lakewood and police also said genetic evidence connected him to an unsolved sexual assault in Lakewood and a 1995 assault in Austin, Texas.

Smith criticized the police department’s handling of the DNA evidence in the case. Former officer Michelle Direzza testified that the rape kit containing semen samples from the September 1993 attacker wasn’t refrigerated because there was no room in the evidence refrigerator.

Wagner appeared as Tim Barnett in more than 20 films produced in the early 1990s. A West Hollywood, Calif., adult film producer confirmed Wagner’s participation.

HONOLULU (AP) – A new law prohibits Hawaii’s landlords from discriminating against gays, lesbians or transsexuals.

Gov. Linda Lingle signed the measure into law July 11.

The measure amends existing law to include sexual orientation and gender identity among the criteria that can’t be used as the basis for denying housing.

The amendments exempt housing owned and operated by religious institutions for church purposes or for church-run higher education housing programs.

Another bill passed by lawmakers that would have added gender identity to a law banning discrimination in the workplace was vetoed by the governor. In her veto message the governor said the language of the measure was not clear enough in defining gender identity.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) – A conservative legislator wants to review policies allowing gays and lesbians to adopt children in foster care, an issue gay rights advocates feared eventually would arise after voters approved a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

Rep. Steve Huebert, R-Valley Center, told the Lawrence Journal-World he is pursuing the issue on behalf of a constituent worried that her granddaughter might be adopted by a lesbian and raised by a lesbian couple.

State law is silent on whether gays and lesbians can adopt foster children, who are generally in state custody because of allegations of abuse or neglect.

“This is an issue that needs to be examined,” Huebert said. “Things need to be spelled out better than they are.”

Legislative leaders planned to meet this week to decide what issues lawmakers will study this summer and fall before their session starts Jan. 9. Huebert wants a study of gay adoptions.

But some leaders are cool to the idea.

“This isn’t an issue that has much momentum that I can tell,” said Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence. “It’s not something I’ve thought about.”

And House Minority Leader Dennis McKinney, D-Greensburg, said: “I wasn’t aware that it was a problem.”

Last year, 627 foster children were adopted, and about half as many children were placed in homes through private adoptions. The state doesn’t keep statistics on how many gays and lesbians adopt.

The state doesn’t allow any unmarried couple to adopt foster children. However, unmarried individuals can, and the question of sexual preference isn’t asked, said Mike Deines, a spokesperson for the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – A Christian group that tries to persuade gays to give up their homosexual ways is again drawing attention from state investigators.

The Department of Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities wants to know if Love In Action International is conducting improper counseling sessions with unlicensed personnel.

Love In Action recently was investigated by the Department of Children’s Services on a child abuse complaint that was found to be unsubstantiated.

John Smid, Love In Action’s executive director, said his group does not provide psychological, drug or alcohol counseling but seeks to help people overcome sexual problems through a stronger Christian faith.

Smid said the group’s programs will be adjusted if necessary to make sure they are in line with state regulations.

Counseling that would be regulated by the state is “really not our focus,” he said.

Rachel Lassiter, a spokesperson for the mental health department, said Love In Action was recently sent a letter seeking information about its practices.

Love In Action’s work, particularly with teenagers, has drawn protests from gay rights advocates.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Salt Lake County Council members rejected extending domestic-partner benefits to employees by a vote of five Republicans to four Democrats.

The GOP opponents cited the voter-approved constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

“We did get a semblance of this in last November’s vote. Our community did tell us then and there, the nuclear family and this definition of marriage ought to have a different classification in our society,” Council-member Cort Ashton said at the meeting.

Councilmember Michael Jensen said that the amendment was too tightly linked to the issue of extending benefits to go against the majority of voters.

“It pains me to send any message to someone if they take it that we don’t value them,” said a tearful Mark Crockett, the GOP council member that benefit supporters had hoped might provide the swing vote to pass the proposal.

Democratic council members Jenny Wilson and Joe Hatch said the question of insurance coverage for domestic partners is about fairness, not marriage.

“This is a low-cost way to reward our gay and lesbian employees who are in long-term relationships. When we carve them out, we really are disadvantaging those folks,” said Wilson.

Under Wilson’s proposal, domestic partners and their children would have been eligible for the same benefits granted families of married employees, including health, dental and life insurance, extended funeral leave and sick leave to care for a dependent.

Those benefits would have been extended to domestic partners who have shared the same residence for a year and are jointly responsible for living expenses.

“Those who have an alternative lifestyle go every day to their job as deputies and firefighters and work their hearts out for this county,” Democratic Councilmember Randy Horiuchi said. “To deny the same kind of rights and benefits is dead wrong in the issue of fairness. Today is a vote on how we treat our employees.”

Jan Donchess, a 20-year county employee and head of the county’s Gay and Lesbian Employees Association, said employees are given only five hours of funeral leave for friends and domestic partners and cannot take sick leave to care for their partners. Married couples are allowed up to 12 weeks of leave to care for spouses and children.

Based on comparisons with private companies that offer partner benefits, Wilson expected between 1 and 2 percent of employees would have been eligible.

SEATTLE (AP) – More than 3,000 people in Washington are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and don’t know it, according to state health officials.

New rules should change that, they say.

“Our goal is to dramatically increase testing and make it more routine. To do that we needed to drastically revise the rules,” said Tom Locke, chair of the Washington State Board of Health.

The old rules, adopted by the board in 1989, required doctors to give patients extensive information about the virus before every test, even if the patient had already received the information during previous tests.

The new rules allow doctors to consider patient histories when they offer counseling, and local health agencies are now responsible for notifying the sex partners of patients who test positive.

Previously, doctors who administered the test had to contact partners and many were uncomfortable with the task, so doctors often directed patients to health agencies for testing, said John Peppert, manager of the state Health Department’s HIV prevention program.

“This isn’t a bad thing, but every time you add a step there will be less people going to get tested,” Peppert said.

More than 15,000 cases of HIV and AIDS have been reported in Washington since 1982.

“Today the rate of new cases of infection is likely going up, but we can’t be certain unless people get tested,” Locke said.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Sen. Rick Santorum said he provides a counterargument to both liberals and libertarians in his new book, It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good.

“I have a problem with both because I don’t think they reflect the tradition of America or the common sense of how people live,” said Santorum, R-Pa. “I see liberalism and libertarianism as ideologies that aren’t based necessarily in reality.”

Santorum, who is chair of the Senate Republican Conference, is scheduled to start a publicity tour for the book on July 24. He did not provide a copy to reporters, but answered questions about it in his office.

The publicity Web site for the book says Santorum emphasizes family in the book in contrast to what it calls the “metaphorical ‘village’ of the federal government” of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., which is, like the title, an apparent reference to her 1996 book, It Takes a Village.

“You can take from that what you want as far as what the title is directed at,” said Santorum, who opposes abortion and same-sex marriage. Santorum said Clinton is mentioned in the book, but he would not elaborate.

“This book is not a book written to counter her book. I’ve read through her book. This is a book to counter her worldview, which in my opinion was not expressed in her book.”

Santorum said his book emphasizes a view that encourages families and promotes civic groups such as churches that “nurture and support families and nurture and support individuals to form them into good human beings who serve not just themselves.”

The book was published by Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which is described on its Web site as a national educational foundation.

Santorum could face a tough re-election battle next year. Early polls have him running behind state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr., the favorite to win the Democratic primary.

MILWAUKEE (AP) – Renewing his attack on conservatives and the Bush administration, NAACP chair Julian Bond accused national leaders of rolling back past civil rights gains, crippling efforts to battle racism and undermining democracy.

“The president likes to talk to the talk, but he doesn’t walk the walk,” Bond told members at the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

President Bush has turned down five invitations to attend NAACP gatherings, including this year’s, and at the convention Bond invited Bush to the next one, in Washington.

“Mr. President, we’re extending the invitation a year in advance,” Bond said. “We want to see you and we want you to see us – we want to know you think you’re our president, too.”

Bond also addressed an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, which has said NAACP officials’ political statements are partisan comments that violate the group’s non-profit status.

“They may try to intimidate us into silence,” Bond said, “but we will not be frightened away from the truth.”

The Baltimore-based non-profit, which has struggled in recent years to raise money, this year faced allegations that former president Kweisi Mfume granted workplace favors to an NAACP employee with whom he had a relationship.

The national board last month selected a new president, retired Verizon executive Bruce S. Gordon, who has pledged to raise an endowment and improve efficiencies in the organization.

The group’s 96th convention, a six-day event, was attended by more than 8,000 people, including 2,200 young adults.

Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin also spoke to the group, saying he would help fight for reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, portions of which are due to expire in 2007.

“The stakes have not been higher on this in the last 25 years,” Sensenbrenner said.

Bond stressed the convention’s theme,