PHOENIX (AP) – Conservatives may be working to add a same-sex marriage ban to the ballot, but Arizona cities are working to welcome more gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender tourists into the state.

The cities are vying for a slice of an estimated $65 billion GLBT travel market. To do that, cities are marketing the area as a cosmopolitan, tolerant place to vacation.

“My money spends like anyone else’s,” said Albuquerque resident Andee Henderson, 38, who was among the estimated crowd of 5,000 attending the Arizona Gay Rodeo Association’s annual competition at Rawhide.

With an 89-page visitors and relocation guide published by the Phoenix gay chamber of commerce flying off the shelves, Phoenix leaders are planning to discuss ways to strengthen the city’s gay tourism plan.

Officials in Tucson, Sedona, Bisbee and Jerome say they informally angle for those visitors.

Tempe is in the midst of a sophisticated campaign to lure GLBT travelers. The campaign began three years ago with careful research, said Stephanie Nowack, president and chief executive of the Tempe Convention & Visitors Bureau. The city later joined industry groups, sent city employees to conferences, bought ads in GLBT publications and launched a Web portal for GLBT visitors.

“I come from Fort Lauderdale, and I like places like that, where it’s OK if I have a boyfriend, to hold his hand,” said Alan Stark, 43.

But not everyone supports cities courting the GLBT community.

Leo Godzich, president of the National Association of Marriage Enhancement, says the cities risk destroying the Grand Canyon State’s family-friendly reputation by trying to wrangle in GLBT tourists.

“Our tourism dollars should be spent on the bulk of the population, not 2 percent of the population,” Godzich said.

SAN JOSE (AP) – The Bush administration, seeking to revive an online pornography law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, has subpoenaed Google Inc. for details on what its users have been looking for through its popular search engine.

Google has refused to comply with the subpoena, issued last year, for a broad range of material from its databases, including a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period, lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department said in papers filed Jan. 18 in federal court in San Jose.

Privacy advocates have been increasingly scrutinizing Google’s practices as the company expands its offerings to include e-mail, driving directions, photo-sharing, instant messaging and Web journals.

Although Google pledges to protect personal information, the company’s privacy policy says it complies with legal and government requests. Google also has no stated guidelines on how long it keeps data, leading critics to warn that retention is potentially forever, given cheap storage costs.

The government contends it needs the data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches as part of an effort to revive an Internet child protection law that was struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court on free-speech grounds.

The 1998 Child Online Protection Act would have required adults to use access codes or other ways of registering before they could see objectionable material online, and it would have punished violators with fines up to $50,000 or jail time. The high court ruled that technology such as filtering software may better protect children.

The matter is now before a federal court in Pennsylvania, and the government wants the Google data to help argue that the law is more effective than software in protecting children from porn.

BOSTON (AP) – Gay rights activists on Jan. 3 sued in an effort to block a proposed constitutional amendment that would put an end to same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

The lawsuit, filed by Gay and Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, challenges a September ruling by state Attorney General Tom Reilly that found the amendment drive was legal.

That ruling allowed backers of the amendment to begin collecting signatures. They gathered more than 120,000 – well above the 65,000 needed to get the measure on the 2008 ballot.

Gary Buseck, GLAD legal director, said the Massachusetts Constitution bars any citizen-initiated amendment that “relates to the reversal of a judicial decision.” Reilly should have blocked the question from going forward on those grounds, Buseck said.

The proposed amendment is designed “squarely and solely” to reverse the landmark 2003 decision by Massachusetts’ high court that legalized same-sex marriage, Buseck said.

A Reilly spokesperson defended the decision.

“While the attorney general does not personally support the proposal, we are confident that letting this question proceed was the right decision,” David Guarino said. “This proposal isn’t a reversal of a judicial decision, but an effort to change the constitution going forward.”

Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, one of the prime backers of the amendment, said the proposed amendment does not specifically try to reverse the court ruling but rather seeks to spell out the legal definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman.

GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) – A University of North Dakota faculty group is recommending that choir director Anthony Reeves be dismissed at the end of the spring semester.

Reeves, an assistant professor, has contended that the school is trying to fire him because he is gay and because he and his partner tried to adopt a 19-year-old student. University officials denied that.

Reeves was accused of unprofessional conduct and neglect of duty.

In a report submitted to UND President Charles Kupchella’s office, all five members of the UND Standing Committee on Faculty Rights recommended that Reeves be dismissed “with cause” at the end of his 2005-06 contractual year. Kupchella will make the final decision.

The faculty group heard nearly 80 hours of testimony in Reeves’ grievance hearing against UND that began Nov. 7 and concluded Dec. 18.

Reeves’ attorney, Henry Howe, said he is considering sending a letter to Kupchella, asking that he hold off on a decision until Reeves can respond to the faculty report.

Reeves has been on administrative leave since August.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – As expected, Virginia’s House of Delegates overwhelmingly reaffirmed its desire to add a same-sex marriage ban to the state’s constitution, despite impassioned warnings that the measure would have unintended consequences.

The 73-22 vote sends the measure to the Senate. If it is approved there, it will be placed on the November ballot and Virginia voters will have the final say.

Constitutional amendments must pass in consecutive General Assembly sessions, with an intervening House of Delegates election, to be placed on the ballot. The measure was approved by a wide margin last year – an indication that it will likely sail through again in this session.

Opponents did their best to derail the amendment, however, arguing that it goes well beyond merely defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

For example, they said the amendment could be interpreted as barring all legal recognition of unmarried family or household members, which would erode protections for many domestic abuse victims. According to the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance, 60 percent of domestic violence victims seeking help in 2004 were not married to their batterers.

“It’s clear to me we are going much too far,” said Del. James M. Scott, D-Fairfax. “Victims of domestic violence will not be able to have their day in court.”

He said he voted for the state law that defines marriage as a male-female union, but that the amendment’s additional language prohibiting recognition of civil unions, domestic partnerships and other legal arrangements resembling marriage are “way over the top.”

Proponents of the amendment say it is necessary to make it clear that Virginia does not have to recognize same-sex marriages, civil unions and domestic partnerships performed in other states. Without the amendment, “marriage as we know it today could be redefined through the judicial process,” said Del. Kathy Byron, R-Lynchburg.

She said it is appropriate to let the voters decide.

“Ultimately, it is their values that will define our culture,” she said.

But Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, lobbyist for the gay rights group Equality Virginia, said voters will not understand the full ramifications of the amendment because the wording of the ballot question is vague and incomplete.

“The reason the proponents don’t want it to be clear is they can’t win a fair fight,” she said.

A separate bill on the ballot question won preliminary approval on a voice vote.

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) – The state House on Jan. 20 passed a bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation, sending the measure to the Senate, where it failed last year by a single vote.

The measure would add sexual orientation to a state law that bans discrimination in housing, employment and insurance. Businesses with fewer than eight employees would be exempt.

Lawmakers voted 60-37 to approve the bill. Sixteen states have similar laws.

“This legislation is about more than just changing the law, it is about sending a message,” said Rep. Ed Murray, a Seattle Democrat who has sponsored the measure for 11 years. “A message that the United States and Washington state is a place of tolerance.”

The measure was first introduced in 1976. The state’s first openly gay lawmaker, Democrat Cal Anderson of Seattle, sponsored it for eight years before he died of AIDS in 1995.

Gov. Chris Gregoire, also a Democrat, has said she will sign the bill if it reaches her desk.

The proposal failed in the Senate last year by one vote, but Republican Sen. Bill Finkbeiner announced earlier this month that he would switch his vote to yes, all but assuring its passage.

Republican Rep. Don Cox said some lawmakers were concerned the measure could result in lawsuits against people who do not realize the person they failed to hire, or the person they fired, was gay or lesbian.

“This bill doesn’t lead to love, tolerance and understanding,” he said, saying the bill “overreaches” in several ways.