SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A section of the AIDS Memorial Quilt will be permanently housed in San Francisco now that the foundation that owns the artwork and the quilt’s designer have reached a legal settlement, according to a foundation lawyer.

Thirty-five panels of the AIDS quilt will be moved to a permanent space in San Francisco and will be available for display throughout the Bay Area, said Charles Thompson, an attorney for the Atlanta-based NAMES Project Foundation.

The quilt, which features hundreds of hand-sewn panels that commemorate people who have died of AIDS, has toured widely.

Cleve Jones started the foundation in 1987, and was fired by the organization in 2003. He claimed he was terminated because he wanted to take the quilt on a national tour in an election year, and filed a lawsuit against his former employer.

The foundation argued it had grounds to fire Jones because he sought to control the organization and had accused foundation president Edward Gatta of being a weak leader.

Earlier this year, a San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled the foundation had grounds to fire Jones and had breached no employment agreement in doing so.

Jones, who lives in Palm Springs, did not return phone calls about the settlement.

BOSTON (AP) – Two gay activists are promising to post on the Internet the names and addresses of anyone who signs a petition that could lead to a statewide ban on same-sex marriage.

The move by Thomas Lang and Alexander Westerhoff, one of the first same-sex couples married in the state, came after state Attorney General Thomas Reilly certified a ballot question that bans same-sex marriage and civil unions.

Now initiative supporters must collect 65,825 signatures from registered voters, and get approval from 25 percent of state lawmakers to get the question on the 2008 ballot.

Lang, 42, said the name, street address, hometown and ZIP code of everyone who signs the petition will be posted on the Web site KnowThyNeighbor.org.

“Everyone’s scrambling to know who in their town would sign this,” Lang told the Boston Herald. “And this Web site will give gay people the tools to know, to defend themselves and their families, to let them go neighbor-to-neighbor and say, ‘I don’t appreciate your signing this.’”

“I’m going to be aggressive, personally,” he said. “I want to know that the people I do business with are not against [same-sex marriage]. This is going to be won by economics.”

Same-sex marriage opponent Kristian Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, said the Web site is “intimidation by no other name.”

Mineau is listed on the site, along with the first 30 people to sign the petition, including former Boston mayor Ray Flynn.

Westerhoff already introduced himself to one of the first petition signers, Madelyn Shields of Beverly. Shields told the Herald she found the meeting “a bit odd,” but described Westerhoff as gracious. She said she hopes other exchanges between same-sex marriage advocates and petition signers are as gracious.

“I have a number of gay friends and I treat people the same regardless, but that does not change my position of what I believe marriage is,” she said.

GOSHEN, N.Y. (AP) – A Monroe man admitted to strangling to death a doctor who had posed as a woman and performed oral sex on him.

Jason Bardsley, 27, said he suffered extreme emotional distress when Dr. Robert Binenfeld lifted his dress and revealed male genitalia on Dec. 21, 2004. Bardsley said the doctor then grabbed his testicles, which prompted Bardsley to strangle him.

Bardsley pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and fourth-degree grand larceny.

Bardsley, who went to the doctor’s home to buy a car, admitted to taking Binenfeld’s credit cards and using them in the days following the killing.

Bardsley faces five to 25 years in prison when sentenced Oct. 25.

Binenfeld, 65, was found guilty of professional misconduct in 1988 for having sex with prison inmates. He lost his license six years later for offenses that included prescribing drugs to a narcotics addict.

Authorities said Bardsley’s emotional distress played a role in the plea bargain.

Bardsley originally faced a second-degree murder charge, but evidence that he suffered a psychiatric breakdown at the time of the crime helped garner a plea bargain.

LAKE JUNALUSKA, North Carolina (AP) – About a dozen members of the Ku Klux Klan protested outside a meeting of United Methodists who want gays and lesbians welcomed in all aspects of church life.

The protesters, mostly men and a few women dressed in black and wearing black berets, came from a handful of southeastern U.S. states and carried signs reading “Show me where sin is OK,” and, “God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.”

“There’s no place for homosexuals in God’s church,” said Cole Thornton, a leader of the KKK group based in Georgia. “It’s not a born way of life, it’s an accepted way of life. And it’s a direct relationship with sin.”

About five counter-protesters from Knoxville, Tenn., who were across the street from the KKK, were asked to leave by police because they were not in a designated protest area.

A small group of counter-protesters returned later to a designated area. One sign they carried read: “I’m straight but I’m not narrow.”

No incidents were reported.

The United Methodist meeting attracted more than 500 people.

“There’s no drag queen shows here this weekend,” said the Rev. Monica Corsaro, spokesperson for Reconciling Ministries, the sponsor of the meeting. “There are just ordinary folks that you would see anywhere, anytime in America.”

In 1984, the Methodist General Conference prohibited “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from serving in the clergy.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – Same-sex marriage advocates lost a court battle before voters defeated a measure which would have legalized same-sex marriage. This summer, they failed to win approval for civil unions in the Legislature.

Now, after dusting themselves off, the state’s gay rights advocates are regrouping, galvanized by a new goal: ousting House Speaker Karen Minnis.

Basic Rights Oregon, the state’s largest gay advocacy group, has singled out Minnis as enemy number-one.

In Portland, the group hosted a Stick It to Minnis event to raise funds to oust the Republican from Wood Village.

The group’s strong dislike of Minnis was sealed when she refused to allow a vote in the House this summer on a civil unions bill passed by the state Senate.

Basic Rights spokesperson Rebekah Kassell said Minnis, who narrowly won election in her last race, offers a galvanizing symbol for gay rights supporters.

In the Legislature’s final month, activists met Minnis and other legislators outside their parking garage with signs urging the House speaker to stop behaving like a tyrant.

Minnis said she doesn’t mind being called “Queen Minnis,” but she resents being told she thwarted the democratic process.

From the beginning, she says she promised that the House would not vote on a civil unions bill.

Senate Majority Leader Kate Brown, D-Portland, called the attack on Minnis “deplorable.”

Brown, who co-sponsored Senate Bill 1000, the civil unions measure, suggested that Basic Rights need to do some fence-mending rather than resorting to personal attacks.

“It’s time to move forward, but to do it carefully and thoughtfully,” Brown said.

A similar civil unions bill is expected to resurface in the 2007 Legislature.

AUSTIN (AP) – Gov. Rick Perry has reached out to 10,000 Texans by e-mail asking for their support of a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between a man and a woman. In turn, an anti-amendment group sent out 10,000 mailers to Democrats accusing Perry and fellow Republicans of attacking gay and lesbian families.

Perry’s e-mail said, “That marriage is the union between a man and a woman is a truth known to each one of us already, and any attempt to allow same-sex marriages is a detriment to the family unit and hurts our state and nation.”

The Texas Marriage Alliance relayed the e-mail through its Web site, which was started this year in support of Proposition 2.

The anti-amendment group, No Nonsense in 2006, paid for a mailing to past Travis County Democratic Party donors questioning the “unnecessary and divisive amendment.”

The mailer said that Perry and “the Republican Legislature are running a shell game with an unnecessary, dangerous attack on our constitution and Texas families.”

Proposition 2 is among nine amendments on the Nov. 8 ballot.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Mayor Rocky Anderson wants to extend health benefits to unmarried partners of gay and straight city employees.

He would prefer to do it with the agreement of the City Council, but believes he has the power to do it administratively on his own.

“As long as we’re going to do this, we should demonstrate unity on this issue,” he said. “Providing for equality should not create more division in our community.”

Anderson said he will offer the benefits once the city finishes its research on the plan and he gets formal word he can do it without a City Council approval.

The city attorney has yet to issue an opinion.

Some supporters of Utah’s new constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage contend it also bars extending benefits to domestic partners, and Anderson’s move could be challenged. Further, Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper, has said he would be willing to sponsor legislation to stop the city from proceeding.

Anderson believes he can administratively offer medical and dental benefits to domestic partners, but cannot administratively offer them bereavement benefits.

He plans to pass an executive order offering medical and dental benefits to domestic partners and seek council approval for the rest.

“What I’m hoping is that I can structure this under the executive order in terms of exactly who will be covered under these benefits and then ask the council to provide bereavement and dependent leave for that same group,” Anderson said.

Anderson said he wants the plan in place before November, when employees change their benefits package. “It’s a matter of getting it drafted,” he said.

Brenda Hancock, director of the city’s Human Resources Department, said a task force is studying which benefits could be offered to employees’ partners, how to implement the program and the legalities.

The city might also offer partners the chance to buy auto insurance and legal assistance – benefits now offered to employees’ spouses.

Other cities and employers offering domestic-partners benefits see 1 percent to 2 percent of the work force apply. If that holds true in Salt Lake City, it could cost the city up to $121,000 more a year to cover domestic partners and their children. Anderson predicted it would be less.