LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) – EchoStar Communications Inc. shareholders will be asked next month not only to elect a board of directors and approve auditors, but also to decide whether the company’s policies should prohibit discrimination against gay and lesbian employees.

The proposal on the company’s proxy for the Oct. 6 shareholder meeting was sponsored by New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., who runs the city pension funds. He has targeted dozens of companies in recent years in a move to expand protections for gay and lesbian employees and has prompted at least 32 companies including grocery chain Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. and FedEx Corp. to amend or agree to amend their policies, said spokesperson Angelica Crane.

EchoStar, which runs the satellite television provider Dish Network, opposes the plan, saying the company’s policies should not go beyond what is included in federal law.

The proposal likely could not pass anyway, company officials said. The board is recommending that shareholders reject the measure, and chair and CEO Charlie Ergen, who holds about 92 percent of voting stock, opposes it, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

“This does not mean that we don’t share the proponents’ interest in preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation,” the board said in the SEC filing. “The board believes that adding to our written policy additional special categories which are not prohibited by federal law undercuts our objective of highlighting federally prohibited activities.”

Neither state nor federal law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The New York City Pension Funds argued that its proposed policy would “ensure a respectful and supportive atmosphere for all employees” and help EchoStar recruit and retain employees.

Satellite provider DirecTV Group band discrimination based on sexual orientation, according to the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign. Comcast Corp., one of the nation’s largest cable providers, bans discrimination against gay and lesbian employees and has offered health insurance to employees’ domestic partners since 2003.

Crain, Thompson’s spokesperson, said he assumes the proposal won’t pass, but intends to place the measure on EchoStar’s ballot in future elections.

WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) – Lawyers for a man charged in the slaying of an openly gay man could be delayed until next year.

Lawyers for Joseph Lawrence have asked the court to delay the trial from Nov. 1 to Jan. 10. Prosecutors did not challenge the request.

Lawrence, 23, of Cedar Falls, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Jason Gage.

Authorities say Lawrence admitted beating and stabbing Gage with a piece of glass at Gage’s Waterloo apartment on March 12. They say Lawrence later told his girlfriend that he assaulted Gage, who was openly gay, after Gage made sexual advances.

Gage’s body was found two days later after a friend failed to hear from him, authorities said.

Defense lawyers also want the trial moved from Black Hawk County, claiming Lawrence would be unable to get a fair trial because of publicity surrounding the case.

The case has received widespread media coverage and the Waterloo Human Rights Commission condemned Gage’s death as a hate crime because he was gay.

Gage’s friends held vigils in his memory and sponsored a concert to raise money for a scholarship in his name to the College of Hair Design, where he was a student.

A judge did not make an immediate ruling on the defense’s requests to delay the trial and move it to another county.

BOSTON (AP) – Reversing a decision made last year, Harvard Law School will fully cooperate with Pentagon recruiters this fall as it awaits a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of a law requiring schools to open their doors to the military.

The dispute concerns a decade-old law called the Solomon Amendment that requires campuses to offer full recruiting access to the Pentagon or risk losing federal grants. Before it was enforced, numerous law schools denied the military formal recruiting access because they said the government’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on gays, lesbians and bisexuals in the military violates the schools’ nondiscrimination guidelines for recruiters.

Last year, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals sided with law schools who had sued to overturn the law on free speech grounds.

After that decision, most schools said they would continue to abide by the law pending a final ruling from the Supreme Court, which will hear the case in December. Harvard, however, reverted to its old policy and did not offer formal recruiting cooperation last spring.

But in an e-mail sent to students, Dean Elena Kagan said the Pentagon had told Harvard it would enforce the law despite the 3rd Circuit ruling, potentially costing the university – and especially its research-intensive medical and public health schools – hundreds of millions of dollars. Overall, about 15 percent of the university’s budget comes from the government.

A group of Harvard faculty planned to file a brief to the Supreme Court urging that the law be overturned, as did a separate consortium of law schools.

Three law schools, including New York Law School, were listed in the federal register as ineligible for federal funds for denying full cooperation to military recruiters, according to Kent Greenfield, a Boston College law professor active in the case opposing the law. But all three were “stand-alone” law schools that were not putting other parts of their universities at risk of losing federal money.

Yale Law School also has reinstated its policy denying formal access to military recruiters, but it is protected by a separate injunction from a federal judge that prevents the Pentagon from enforcing the policy there.

HLS Lambda, a group representing GLBT students at Harvard, posted a statement on its Web site saying the group wished the university had more actively opposed the law, but applauded Kagan for barring recruiters last November.

The group said the Pentagon’s anti-gay policy and the law threatening to deny universities funding “serve neither its interests nor the country’s as a whole.”

HELENA (AP) – Montana gay rights advocates are urging businesses to cancel their health coverage with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana, accusing the insurance company of discrimination.

But the company said its decision to halt coverage on some policies for a person’s unmarried domestic partner was based on a recent Montana Supreme Court decision and the state law that defines dependents.

“It is not a moral decision,” said Tanya Ask, vice president of government affairs for Blue Cross. “It’s a very clear legal decision.”

The insurer recently decided to drop coverage in its “small group” plans for the insured person’s unmarried domestic partner, regardless of whether the partner is a common-law spouse or a same-sex partner.

The decision affects only its small-group coverage, which covers 10,000 to 20,000 people, Ask said. Small-group policies cover groups of two to 50 employees. Larger groups have more flexibility to choose their range of benefits and can define who’s covered, including domestic partners of employees, she said.

Blue Cross insures about 230,000 people in Montana, and is by far the state’s largest health insurer. During a news conference at the insurer’s Helena office, gay rights advocates said the decision amounted to “blatant discrimination.”

“Tell them to stop discriminating against lesbian and gay families and common-law partnerships,” said state Rep. Christine Kaufmann, D-Helena. “Tell them to expand society’s circle of compassion, when so many are wondering how they can afford quality health care.”

The dispute stems from a Dec. 30 decision by the Montana Supreme Court concerning a lawsuit brought by gay and lesbian employees of the university system. The court ruled that the state cannot discriminate between same-sex couples and heterosexual, unmarried couples when it comes to health insurance benefits.

In June, Blue Cross sent a letter to companies in small groups whose policies covered common-law spouses. It said because of the court ruling, it would no longer extend coverage to any unmarried domestic partner of a covered employee.

Ask said the change is needed to keep all policies uniform and in agreement with state law, which does not define a same-sex partner as a “dependent.” If the law changes, the policies would change, she said.

Kaufmann and Karl Olson, director of the gay advocacy group PRIDE, said other insurers have not taken the same action.

New West Health Services, a Helena-based company that insures 35,000 people, still offers coverage to domestic partners of people covered by their policies, they said.

Jim Senterfitt, interim chief executive officer for New West, said it’s up to the company buying the insurance to decide which dependents it wants the policy to cover.

“We don’t discriminate as to who is a domestic partner and who isn’t,” he said.

WACO, Texas (AP) – A dining contractor has removed coffee cups with a gay author’s quote from a Starbucks at Baylor University, saying it was inappropriate for the Baptist school.

Aramark, which oversees the coffee outlet, pulled the cups earlier this month from the campus store after consulting with Starbucks’ district office and Baylor’s dining service, school officials said.

“I think they were trying to be sensitive,” Baylor spokesperson Larry Brumley said. “Obviously, Baylor is a Baptist-affiliated institution, and Baptists as a denomination have been pretty outspoken on the record about the denomination’s views about the homosexual lifestyle.”

The quote from novelist Armistead Maupin reads: “My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it for so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don’t make that mistake yourself. Life’s too damn short.”

Cade Hammond, president of the board of directors for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Central Texas, said he thinks the cups’ removal is unnecessarily restrictive.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – A Spanish Fork man has sued a Provo surgical center and two doctors, saying he was refused surgery because he was HIV-positive.

The U.S. District Court lawsuit filed by Daniel S. Richardson contends the HealthSouth Provo Surgical Center violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by canceling surgery on his ulcerated toe.

Richardson, 42, said a doctor there said it was the center’s policy not to accept HIV-positive patients.

The lawsuit, filed Aug. 26, seeks unspecified monetary damages and an order barring the center and its doctors from refusing to treat people who have tested positive for HIV.

Stephen Owens, an attorney for HealthSouth Provo, said the center is looking into Richardson’s complaint.

“We’re taking it seriously,” he said. “We can’t comment yet because we just learned about it.”

The lawsuit said Richardson scheduled his non-emergency surgery for Dec. 17 and his physician sent his medical paperwork to HealthSouth Provo.

Three days before surgery, a staff member at the center told him that the procedure was canceled because of his HIV status, the lawsuit said.

Richardson’s physician phoned the facility and was told that no scrub techs would do the surgery and that it was a policy of HealthSouth Provo not to take patients who are HIV-positive, the lawsuit said.

After his surgery was refused, “Richardson was devastated and emotionally distraught,” the lawsuit said. “Richardson was in severe physical pain, which caused additional emotional and psychological distress.”

Richardson had the toe surgery a week later at another Utah County facility, according to his attorney, Marlin G. Criddle.

Fraser Nelson, executive director of the Disability Law Center in Salt Lake City, said people who are HIV-positive are protected by law from discrimination.

Although many appear outwardly healthy and advances in medical science allow them to live normal lives, the perception of disability puts these patients under the ADA, she said.

“I haven’t heard of one of these cases in a long time,” Nelson said. “In the early days of the HIV epidemic, there were many such cases. My assumption was that we had overcome this irrational fear.”

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Equality Virginia, the state’s largest gay and lesbian advocacy group, has created a nonpartisan political action committee to add monetary support to its grass-roots efforts.

They’ll face conservative groups with heavy cash flow and strong sway in the General Assembly.

The PAC will focus on delegate races this year, directing money toward up to 20 candidates identified as supporting gay-friendly legislation, said David Lampo, chair of Equality Virginia’s political committee.

They’ll select candidates to endorse at an Oct. 1 meeting, and hope to distribute about $10,000 to candidates in this election cycle.

“We’ve been building, expanding, raising money for the past few years, but didn’t really have the staff or the funds to take that final step,” Lampo said. “We have the membership, we have the financial support and we certainly have the group of sympathetic legislators that we can now put it all together.”

Their effort comes less than two months before the November general election and the start of the 2006 General Assembly session, which is likely to include gay rights as a hot-button issue.

Virginia legislators this year overwhelmingly approved a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. They’ll have to approve it a second time before it can appear on the ballot as early as November 2006.

Virginia ranks 49th out of 51 states and districts in terms of gay-friendly laws, according to Equality Virginia.

Factor in deep pockets among the conservative bloc and Equality Virginia is in an uphill struggle in terms of tipping the political balance, according to University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato.

“The biggest challenge is always raising a substantial amount of money,” he said. “You point to your opponents and say, ‘We need to keep up with the Joneses’ – and the Joneses are doing quite well.”

As of June 30, the Virginia Conservative Action PAC had raised $623,943, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. The Virginia Conservative Alliance had raised $155,290 through the same period.

Sabato estimated many millions more are in the hands of conservative groups and individual donors statewide.

He suggested the fledgling PAC focus on supporting known allies, building a war chest and a strong reputation rather than trying to win over new supporters.