MILLSTADT, Ill. (AP) – A 170-year-old congregation in southern Illinois says it is breaking away from the United Church of Christ because the denomination’s support of same-sex marriages and abortion rights has eroded its membership.

The Zion United Church of Christ accused the denomination in a written statement of promoting “unbiblical teachings and practices.” The church’s pastor said the discontent had been building for some time.

“The congregation was growing more and more upset over where they felt the denomination was going,” said the Rev. Darrell Weber. “That has shown in a decline in membership and in giving that goes back 15 years.”

Weber said Zion’s membership has decreased from 1,000 members 15 years ago to about 550, primarily because of the United Church of Christ’s support for the ordination of gay clergy, same-sex marriage and pro-choice rights.

The congregation voted 116-37 on Dec. 11, with five members abstaining, to leave the denomination.

The Rev. Gene Kraus, interim minister for the United Church of Christ’s Illinois South Conference, said the denomination was saddened by the decision. He said the church’s leadership prevented the denomination from reaching out to the membership before the vote was held.

“I was very disappointed that the leaders of the church, including its current pastor, did not provide an opportunity for the church to have any conversation with representatives of the United Church of Christ,” he said.

Formed in 1835, Zion was the oldest church in the denomination’s Illinois South Conference. But it isn’t the first to leave. The Hope Church in Belleville left the denomination in 2000 after 81 percent of its members voted to split from the United Church of Christ.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – A General Motors Corp. program that lets Hispanics, blacks or lesbians – but not Christians – organize in employee groups does not commit religious discrimination, a federal court ruled.

The company’s Affinity Group diversity program treats all religions equally because no groups are allowed to promote religious positions, the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled.

The claim arose after John Moranski, a born-again Christian who works at GM’s Allison Transmission plant in Indianapolis, applied in December 2002 to start an interdenominational Christian employees group as part of the diversity program, according to court documents.

GM rejected the application because program guidelines do not allow the groups to promote religious positions, the documents say. Moranski filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and then filed a federal lawsuit claiming religious discrimination.

A federal judge in Indianapolis dismissed the suit, and the appeals court upheld the decision, agreeing that the program handled all religions equally.

“The allegations in Moranski’s complaint make clear that General Motors would have taken the same action had he possessed a different religious position,” Judge Ann Claire Williams wrote for the appeals court.

According to GM’s Web site, the program recognizes nine groups, including ones for people with disabilities, gays and lesbians, women and veterans, and five for people of Hispanic, African or Asian ancestry.

No home telephone number was listed for Moranski in the Indianapolis area, and he could not be located for comment.

GM corporate diversity spokesperson Crystal Hickman said she was not familiar with the lawsuit.

SANTA FE (AP) – A teenager who pleaded guilty to charges in February’s beating of a gay man will be sentenced as an adult.

State District Judge Michael Vigil ruled that David Trinidad, 17, is not amenable to treatment as a juvenile. The judge said evaluations indicate Trinidad has little remorse for his actions.

Trinidad pleaded guilty in August to charges of aggravated battery, battery, conspiracy and criminal damage to property.

He and three other people who entered guilty pleas in September in the attack will not be sentenced until two remaining defendants go to trial in February.

James Maestas, 21, and Joshua Stockham, 23, were attacked in the parking lot of a Santa Fe motel early Feb. 27. Maestas spent nearly a week in intensive care; Stockham suffered minor injuries.

Maestas told the court: “I’m dealing every day of my life as a person who got beat up because of who they are.”

Stockham said the attack has affected his life “quite dramatically.” He said he doesn’t go out as much, and when he does he’s nervous.

Maestas and Stockham were attacked in the parking lot after eating with a group of friends at a nearby restaurant, police said. They left the restaurant after a group of young men became aggressive toward them, police said.

Trinidad, a waiter who served Maestas and the others, knew where they were going and directed his friends to the motel, police said.

Trinidad apologized to the men and their families.

“I shouldn’t have done what I did,” he said. “I know I messed up their lives pretty bad. I don’t want to be the same person I was before. I want to be different.”

Dr. Eric Kraska, an emergency room physician who treated Maestas at St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, said at the hearing that Maestas probably would have died if he hadn’t gotten treatment. Kraska said Maestas was on a respirator for seven days, longer than he’d ever heard of for a patient suffering from trauma.

At the time of the attack, Trinidad was on probation for raping a 4-year-old, and had already spent a year at a sex offender treatment center and seven months of outpatient treatment, Assistant District Attorney Heidi Zoyhofski said.

NEW YORK (AP) – Charles Socarides, the psychiatrist famous for insisting that homosexuality was a treatable illness and who claimed to have “cured” hundreds, has died. He was 83.

Socarides, died Dec. 25 of heart failure at a hospital near his Manhattan home, his family announced.

He waged an unsuccessful battle to reverse the American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders, and brushed off frequent condemnations by colleagues who considered his views hurtful.

“Gays ascribe their condition to God, but he should not have to take that rap, any more than he should be blamed for the existence of other manmade maladies – like war,” he wrote in the Catholic weekly magazine America in 1995.

Socarides persisted in his views despite having a gay son, Richard, who became an adviser to President Clinton on gay and lesbian affairs.

In the 1990s, he was among the founders of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, a nonprofit group based in Encino, Calif., “dedicated to affirming a complementary, male-female model of gender and sexuality.”

A native of Brockton, Mass., Socarides decided he wanted to become a psychoanalyst at age 13 after reading a book on the life of Sigmund Freud. He graduated from Harvard College, earned his medical degree at New York Medical College, and got a certificate in psychoanalytic medicine at Columbia University. He taught at The Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Besides his son, he is survived by his wife, Claire; another son, two daughters and one grandchild.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – A pastor has resigned from his Tulsa church and from the Nashville, Tenn.-based executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention after being arrested on charges that he propositioned a male plainclothes police officer.

Rev. Lonnie Latham, 59, who was senior pastor at South Tulsa Baptist Church, also resigned from the board of directors of Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma on Jan. 5, citing “personal reasons,” said Heidi Wilburn, a spokesperson for the state organization.

Latham was arrested on the night of Jan. 3 on charges of offering to engage in an act of lewdness. He was accused of asking the officer to join him in his hotel room for oral sex, said police Capt. Jeffrey Becker.

When he left Oklahoma County Jail the following day, Latham said he was pastoring to police at the time of his arrest and that he had been “set up.”

“We are deeply saddened by the recent events regarding Lonnie,” Wilburn said. “We continue to be concerned for the South Tulsa Baptist Church and the Latham family. We pray Lonnie will find healing and restoration as he seeks help for the issues he faces.”

Latham has supported a convention directive urging members to befriend gays and lesbians and try to convince them that they can become heterosexual “if they accept Jesus Christ as their savior and reject their ‘sinful, destructive lifestyle.’”

The Southern Baptist Convention is the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

The lewdness charge carries a penalty of up to one year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

WASHINGTON (AP) – A key Senate committee chair hailed the government’s reinstatement of a medical safety expert who was fired after he raised allegations of misconduct in federal AIDS research, saying it was an important step in addressing the problems.

Dr. Jonathan Fishbein’s reinstatement by the National Institutes of Health “is an example where we can ‘chalk one up for the good guys,’” said Senate Finance Committee Chair Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. “His allegations led to an acknowledgment by NIH of deep-seeded, systemic problems that are finally being addressed by high-level managers.”

The Associated Press reported that NIH reinstated Fishbein and gave him time to find another federal job, settling a two-year whistleblower battle that prompted investigations into scientific misconduct and sexual harassment in the government’s premier AIDS research program.

Fishbein was among a handful of NIH whistleblowers whose plight was highlighted in Associated Press stories last year examining allegations of safety problems with federal AIDS research in the United States and Africa, sexual harassment of female NIH safety workers and the use of foster children to test AIDS drugs.

Grassley, a strong supporter of government whistleblowers, championed Fishbein’s case. His committee conducted its own investigation and prompted federal inquiries that are continuing. Nearly a dozen other lawmakers eventually intervened.

“Dr. Fishbein brought to light serious allegations of systemic problems at the National Institutes of Health. Our nation’s premier biomedical institution should not tolerate the type of misconduct and sexual harassment alleged by Dr. Fishbein,” Grassley said. “As is typical, Dr. Fishbein suffered mightily for being a whistleblower and for exposing the truth, until now.”