PHOENIX (AP) – The Phoenix Diocese plans no changes to the way it chooses priest candidates because its practices already are in line with a Vatican document banning gay men from seminaries.

“The bishop is not going to ask me to change anything,” said the Rev. Don Kline, vocations director for six years for the diocese.

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted said he welcomed the Vatican document, which was released last month.

It rejects candidates who are “actively homosexual, have deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture.”

The document offers no specifics on how dioceses, religious orders or seminaries should implement its conclusions.

Kline said he does not need to change the way he develops priests, and he will not begin to ask candidates whether they are gay or straight.

He argues that his current practices will weed out any young men who cannot remain true to church teaching, including the church position that homosexual behavior is sinful.

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) – A judge ruled that two conservative parishes that broke away from the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles to protest the ordination of a gay bishop are the rightful owners of their church buildings and other property.

The diocese had argued that it held the property in trust for All Saints Church in Long Beach and St. David’s Church in North Hollywood.

Those parishes, along with St. James Church in Newport Beach, pulled out of the Los Angeles Diocese and the 2.3 million-member national Episcopal Church in August 2004 following the ordination of a gay bishop in New Hampshire. They said they were placing themselves under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Church in Uganda.

Los Angeles Bishop Jon Bruno was among the majority of U.S. Episcopal bishops who voted to endorse the New Hampshire selection.

Los Angeles Diocese officials said they would appeal the ruling by Orange County Superior Court Judge David C. Velasquez, just as they appealed his August ruling in favor of the Newport Beach parish.

“We continue to be very confident of our position on all three of these cases and believe the Court of Appeal will see it our way,” said diocesan attorney John Shiner.

Attorney Daniel F. Lula, whose firm has represented the parishes, said he was confident the congregations would prevail on appeal.

The Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of the 75 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion.

Conservative prelates in Africa, South America and Asia have severed or downgraded relations with the U.S. Episcopal Church over its decision to ordain the gay bishop.

Last year, a unanimous state appeals court ruling granted property rights to St. Luke’s Community Church, which had quit the United Methodist Church because it didn’t discipline clergy who conducted a union service for a same-sex couple. The California Supreme Court turned down the denomination’s appeal.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – A gay rights organization filed a lawsuit on behalf of six gay and lesbian couples in Polk County District Court, asking for the right to marry for same-sex couples.

Lambda Legal, the organization that spearheaded the same-sex marriage drive across the country, said it wants full recognition of the civil rights of same-sex couples.

“There are thousands of couples in Iowa who are eager for the protections and security that come with marriage,” Camilla Taylor, a staff attorney with Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, said during a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

“They are willing to take on the responsibilities and obligations as well…. They shouldn’t have to wait any longer,” she said.

The group will argue that the state constitution’s equal protection and due process clauses make it unlawful for the state to bar same-sex couples from marrying. They plan to take the case to the Iowa Supreme Court if necessary.

The couples will be represented by Lambda Legal and Dennis Johnson, the former solicitor general of Iowa who is with the Dorsey & Whitney Law Firm in Des Moines. Five of the couples appeared at press conferences in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids announcing the lawsuit. They are from Urbandale, Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.

Taylor said it is the fifth lawsuit that Lambda Legal has filed around the country. The others are in New York, New Jersey, California and Washington State. Marriage equality lawsuits are also underway in the Maryland and Connecticut courts.

Taylor said she thinks Iowans are fair-minded and she’s confident that “we will be treated with respect and that Iowans are going to be open to what we have to say.”

“These are wonderful families who have been together for years and have wanted to marry for years. Some have children. They are people’s friends and neighbors,” she said.

The conservative Iowa Family Policy Center said the lawsuit was an attempt to circumvent the will of the people.

“Rather than trusting Iowans to decide this critical social issue, Lambda Legal hopes to force Iowans to accept same-sex marriage through the courts,” the organization’s president, Chuck Hurley, said in a statement. “The people of Iowa should decide this issue, not a handful of unelected judges.

Earlier this month, a New York appeals court overturned a ruling that would have allowed same-sex couples to marry, saying it is not the role of judges to redefine the terms “husband” and “wife.”

A Lambda Legal lawyer has said the group will appeal.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – Jesse Connolly, the Democratic activist who managed John Kerry’s presidential campaign in Maine and helped engineer the defeat of the effort to repeal the state’s gay rights law, will now go to bat for Gov. John Baldacci.

Connolly, 27, of Portland, was tapped by Baldacci to manage his 2006 re-election campaign and will begin his new assignment Jan. 1.

“He has done a lot of good things in his four years, and I believe he deserves a second term. We will communicate that to the people of Maine,” Connolly said.

Connolly led the campaign that ended last month when 55 percent of Mainers voted to keep the gay rights law. Baldacci was a staunch supporter of the antidiscrimination measure as it made its way through the legislative process.

Last year, Kerry carried Maine with 54 percent of the vote.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) – A national fraternity for gay and bisexual male students and their supporters is headed to the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Delta Lambda Phi, which began in 1987 in Washington, D.C., consists of 18 chapters nationwide, including groups at Purdue University, the University of Minnesota, Southern Methodist University and the University of South Alabama.

The University of Missouri-Columbia group was recently inducted as a colony, the first formal step toward full recognition. Two previous efforts in recent years failed for lack of interest.

Eight University of Missouri students are in the inaugural induction class. They emphasize that the fraternity is about celebrating brotherhood, not sexuality.

“It’s a fraternity, not a gay fraternity,” said Joe Bowmaster, a junior at Westminster College in Fulton who plans to transfer to the University of Missouri to fully participate in the group.

A three-day induction ceremony included chapter representatives from Kansas State University, Iowa State, the University of Missouri-Rolla and Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, as well as the national fraternity’s vice president.

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) – A former Boy Scout leader charged with soliciting a child for sex on the Internet faced new charges after investigators said they learned that, knowing he was HIV-positive, he had unprotected sex with a 14-year-old boy.

David Mayberry, 50, of Mont Clare, Montgomery County, was held in Montgomery County prison in lieu of $1 million bail. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had an attorney.

Mayberry had been apprehended Nov. 4 at a motel in Bensalem, Bucks County, where he allegedly thought he had arranged on the Internet to meet a 12-year-old boy to have sex. Police said he actually had been in contact with an undercover investigator.

Authorities said they then learned that Mayberry, who had been an assistant scoutmaster for a Boy Scout troop in Oaks, Montgomery County, had used the Internet to arrange a Nov. 2 meeting in which he had unprotected sex with a 14-year-old boy in Montgomery County. He will face a preliminary hearing this month in Montgomery County on charges including unlawful contact with a minor, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated assault, corruption of minors and criminal use of a computer.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) – West Virginia is being awarded $1.43 million to provide housing assistance to rural residents living with HIV or AIDS, said U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant will help pay the housing costs for 70 to 100 households, said Capito, R-W.Va.

“In too many cases overwhelming health care costs force people onto the streets because they cannot afford to pay for their housing,” she said.

The West Virginia Coalition for People With AIDS applied for the grant.