ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – Gay rights advocates claimed a major victory after the state Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to deny benefits to same-sex partners of public employees.

In overturning a lower court ruling, the state high court said barring benefits for state and city employees’ same-sex partners violates the Alaska constitution’s equal protection clause.

The ruling could influence courts in other states, said Michael Macleod-Ball, director of the Alaska American Civil Liberties Union. Alaska was one of the first states to pass a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

“Other courts … could be looking to the state of Alaska on how it handled the equal protection rationale,” Macleod-Ball said.

Carrie Evans, state legislative director for the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign, said the unanimous decision sets the stage for Alaska to join 11 other states that already have laws, policies or union contracts providing employee benefits in all eligible same-sex unions.

Anchorage city attorney Fred Boness said city officials would not appeal the decision.

But Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski was “outraged” by the ruling and directed the attorney general’s office to determine the best way to overturn it, said his spokesperson, Becky Hultberg.

The high court said the disputed benefits plans will stand until a remedy is reached in future court hearings.

Nine gay or lesbian government workers and their partners in 2002 joined the Alaska American Civil Liberties Union in appealing the lower court ruling. The case stems from a 1999 lawsuit filed against the state and the Municipality of Anchorage after voters passed a constitutional amendment blocking state recognition of same-sex marriage.

In the 2001 Superior Court ruling, Judge Stephanie Joannides said the state and city did not have to extend benefits to same-sex couples, equating them with unmarried heterosexual couples who also are not eligible.

The high court said that comparison failed to acknowledge the fact that heterosexual couples can choose to get married, while homosexual couples cannot.

BOSTON (AP) – The social services agency of the Archdiocese of Boston has allowed 13 foster children to be adopted by same-sex couples in the past two decades, despite Vatican teachings against homosexuality.

Leaders of Catholic Charities of Boston said state regulations prohibit the agency from discriminating based on sexual orientation.

“If we could design the system ourselves, we would not participate in adoptions to gay couples, but we can’t,” the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, the agency’s president, told The Boston Globe. “We have to balance various goods.”

The 13 adoptions – a small fraction of the 720 placed by Catholic Charities in that period – took place as part of a contract with the state Department of Social Services. The children placed with same-sex couples are among the most difficult to place, either because they are older or have physical or emotional problems.

Hehir said if they excluded same-sex couples, they wouldn’t be able to help the hundreds of foster children that went to heterosexual couples.

Hehir’s viewpoint is not shared by all at Catholic Charities, however. Peter Meade, who is chair of the board, told the Globe that the agency should be accepting same-sex couples who are willing to take in needy children.

“What we do is facilitate adoptions to loving couples,” Meade said. “I see no evidence that any child is being harmed.”

Catholic Charities signed its state adoption contract with the state in 1987. Since then, the 13 adoptions have taken place, with the last one occurring this year.

The Catholic Church views homosexuality as immoral. Locally, the Archdiocese of Boston has been politically active in support of a proposed state constitutional ban of same-sex marriage.

C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, a conservative Catholic organization, said, “No religious organization ought to be forced to compromise its principle as a condition of its social services.”

ST. LOUIS (AP) – St. Louis joined a list of other cities urging Congress to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on gays, lesbians and bisexuals in the military.

Aldermanic president James Shrewsbury introduced the resolution that was unanimously approved. It urges Congress to pass and President Bush to sign the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, introduced in March, which would allow lesbians, gays and bisexuals to serve openly.

“You don’t have to be a gay rights activist to oppose discrimination,” Shrewsbury said. “There is no relationship between performance in any position and sexual orientation.”

Among the bill’s 98 co-sponsors are three Missouri Democrats in the House – Russ Carnahan and William Lacy Clay of St. Louis and Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City.

Other cities have passed similar resolutions, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), a national watchdog group aimed at ending discrimination and harassment in the military. New York, San Francisco, Chicago, West Hollywood, Calif., and Cathedral City, Calif., are among the others.

The California General Assembly approved a similar resolution in September, becoming the first state to officially oppose the ban, said C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of SLDN.

Critics of the policy also contend it is hurting recruitment at a time when the military needs personnel for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Neither the White House nor the Pentagon has given any hint of dropping the policy, implemented in 1993 under the Clinton administration. It prohibits the military from inquiring about the sex lives of service members but requires discharge of those who acknowledge being gay, lesbian or bisexual.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – A federal judge has refused to allow Love In Action ministry, which counsels gay and lesbian clients to turn straight, to continue treating people who are mentally ill and require prescription medication.

An injunction was sought against an order from the state Department of Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities, which found that the organization’s two Memphis facilities were controlling patients’ access to their prescription medication and thus needed to be licensed as a mental health facility.

Love In Action International Inc. has sued the state to oppose being required to get a license. It claims that the facility did not restrict access to medication, but kept it in a central location to prevent theft and tampering. The ministry is being represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian legal organization.

U.S. District Judge Bernice Donald denied the motion, The Commercial Appeal reported.

“We’re still very encouraged and we believe the court will eventually rule in our favor,” said Nathan Kellum, counsel for LIA. “There are no disputed facts; it’s just a question of the state misapplying the statute of licensure.”

Love In Action’s stated mission is: “the prevention or remediation of unhealthy and destructive behaviors facing families, adults and adolescents,” including promiscuity, pornography and homosexuality.

Its work has drawn the ire of many gay rights advocates, who Love In Action claims were instrumental in getting the state to inspect the facility and push for its closing.

SEATTLE (AP) – Test results from an experimental vaccine to treat HIV patients is showing promising results, which have prompted researchers to double the number of volunteers involved in the international study.

The vaccine is the most promising in 20 years, say scientists with the international HIV Vaccine Trials Network based here. They’ve found much stronger immune responses than in earlier tests and discovered that the vaccine may protect against more types of the virus, thereby providing possible broader application.

“We’re really excited about it,” said Dr. Julie McElrath, a Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center scientist who directs the network lab program and heads the Seattle vaccine clinic. “It’s the one out in front.”

The network plans to double its number of volunteers from 1,500 to 3,000 internationally, increasing the number locally from 50 to 100. Testing of the vaccine, called the Step Study, will continue for nearly five years.

If successful results continue, larger tests could be launched within that time. If shown to be truly effective against the virus, it could be widely available to the public in about seven years, McElrath told The Seattle Times.

Manufactured by Merck & Co., based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., the vaccine is being tested in 14 U.S. cities, including Seattle, and in Canada, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Peru and Australia.

Scientists for two decades have worked to develop a vaccine to prevent the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS.

Early vaccines used antibodies to fight HIV. More recently scientists have concentrated on stimulating killer immune-system T cells to do the job. Some 15 different vaccines are now in trials with the HIV Vaccine Trials Network.

The latest uses a disabled form of a common cold virus – called an adenovirus – to ferry three specific HIV genes into the body, sparking a boost in T-cell immune response.

An earlier, single-gene vaccine triggered a weak response in volunteers previously exposed to the particular cold virus used. But the three-gene vaccine increased T-cell response in those people considerably.

“That makes it more likely to work in most people,” said McElrath.

Reported side effects of the vaccine have been fever and aches.

Scientists also found that the latest vaccine was successful against HIV strains found in Africa, as well as in North and South America, Europe and Australia.

“It looks like we have a good killer-cell vaccine, so now we need to find out if this approach works” to protect against actual infection, McElrath said.