ALAMO, Calif. (AP) – Homeowners on a private road with a name some people find alluring or amusing want their expensive street signs to stop disappearing.

Thieves have so far stolen four custom wooden signs from the residents of Gaywood Road in Alamo, who said the looting is no longer a laughing matter. New signs can cost as much as $600 each, residents said.

“At first, we made a joke out of it, and everybody pitched in to buy a new sign,” said 10-year Alamo resident Linda Buschmeyer. “Then, it wasn’t so funny the second time on. It is kind of a personal insult.”

Residents on the eight-household street suspect the sign stealers are captivated by the word “gay” in the street name, but said they like the name and will not change it.

Instead, they are considering stenciling the name on two posts anchored into the ground to prevent future thefts.

Residents are responsible for replacing the signs because they live on a private road in an unincorporated area. Street signs also have been reported stolen from Gaywood Place in the neighboring Contra Costa County town of Moraga, but the town paid for their replacement.

Another Alamo neighborhood was the site of a heated protest 15 years ago between a gay rights group and residents who wanted to change the name of their street from Gay Court to High Eagle Road.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut removed a priest from his duties in a clash over the elevation of a gay bishop in New Hampshire.

Connecticut Bishop Andrew D. Smith stripped Mark H. Hansen, formerly of St. John’s Church in Bristol, “of the right to exercise the office of priest in the Episcopal church.” Smith had “inhibited,” or suspended Hansen six months earlier.

“It’s a very sad day,” Smith said in an interview.

Hansen was among six priests and their respective parishes who had asked to be supervised by a different bishop because they disagreed with Smith’s support for the Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the church’s first openly gay bishop. Robinson’s consecration in 2003 has divided the U.S. Episcopal Church and expanded the rift over gay issues among churches in the global Anglican Communion.

Hansen, who resigned his priesthood in September, refused to meet with Smith, the bishop said.

“The controversies are still there. This is not about the controversy,” Smith said. “This is about his abandonment of the relationship he has as a priest with the bishop. People disagree with me [over Robinson] and do not abandon their relationship with the bishop.”

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho (AP) – A club for gay and lesbian students at Lake City High School has come under fire from a local Republican group and community members.

School officials and club advisers were invited to speak at a monthly meeting of the North Idaho Pachyderm Club, where some referenced pedophiles when talking about the club.

Mike Oliver, a member of the Constitution Party of Idaho, garnered applause when he accused school officials of “creating a breeding ground for pedophilia.”

The Rev. Paul Van Noy of the Candlelight Christian Fellowship church in Hayden said allowing the club was like giving the students drugs.

School officials defended the group.

The club meets all school guidelines and doesn’t pose disruption to the educational process, the only legal basis upon which the school could bar the club, Principal John Brumley said.

Mark Woolcott, an English teacher and adviser for the group, said federal law asks schools to address at-risk groups like gays and lesbians. He said statistics show gay and lesbian students are more likely to drop out of school and two to three times as likely to commit suicide because of verbal and physical harassment.

The community, Brumley said, should show the same enthusiasm for protecting the students as they once showed trying to drive the Aryan Nation out of North Idaho.

“No one, regardless of their lifestyle, should be mistreated, harassed, abused,” Brumley said.

Brumley said he and Woolcott did not come to the meeting hoping to change anyone’s minds about gays and lesbians, they just wanted to clarify the club’s purpose and potential legal issues.

RICHMOND, Ind. (AP) – The former executive director of an area AIDS task force faces 10 felony theft charges in which a prosecutor alleges he stole, mishandled and misused thousands of dollars.

William R. Selkirk, Jr. led the AIDS Task Force of Southeast Central Indiana from December 2002 until March 2004, when he left following complaints of mismanagement by staff members and a battle among the agency’s board members over whether he should be fired.

Wayne County Prosecutor Mike Shipman filed the criminal charges against Selkirk after an 18-month investigation into his actions with the AIDS agency and the Hope House addiction center in Richmond.

“I have put more time into the investigative stage of this case than any other criminal case I’ve been involved in,” Shipman said. “Tracking down a large sum of money spent in small amounts over a long period of time is difficult.”

Among the allegations against Selkirk are that he paid himself $12,000 for accounting work for Hope House that was never performed; wrote an $8,000 check from a task force account to cover the payroll for another person’s private business with no record that the money was ever repaid; and paid $3,150 to a New Castle woman to conduct the task force’s 2002 audit even though she was not a qualified accountant.

The AIDS agency closed its doors in July 2004 after the State Department of Health pulled $232,500 worth of grants – or more than three-quarters of the agency’s $300,000 annual budget – after the complaints of misuse emerged.

NEW YORK (AP) – Is “American Idol” homophobic?

The FOX talent show elicited a response from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) after judges Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson made what the gay rights group deemed questionable comments on its recent premiere episode.

On the show, seen by a Nielsen-chart topping 35.5 million viewers, Cowell told one male contestant to “wear a dress” and Jackson asked another, “Are you a girl?”

“The real offense here was in the producer’s decision to add insult to injury by turning a contestant’s gender expression into the butt of a joke,” said Damon Ramine, a spokesperson for GLAAD, in a statement posted on the group’s Web site.

Ramine updated the situation with another statement: “We’ve spoken with FOX and have entered into what we hope will be a productive, ongoing conversation about the show’s representation and discussion of sexual orientation and gender expression.”

A spokesperson for “American Idol” said FOX had no comment.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) – OraSure Technology’s oral rapid HIV test appears to be performing well despite recent reports of false positives, according to the chief executive officer of the Bethlehem, Pa., company.

The OraQuick test has been 99.8 percent accurate in identifying people who do not have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, OraSure CEO Douglas Michels said at the recent Needham & Co. investor conference in New York.

That figure was based on 112,000 tests in eight states last year, including states that reported a spike in false positives.

It was Michels’, and OraSure’s, first at-length public comment since the false positive reports sent the company’s stock tumbling in December.

Several big-city health agencies said OraQuick, which in 20 minutes gives results from a saliva sample collected with a swab, had incorrectly identified a higher-than-normal number of people as HIV-positive.

OraSure shares lost more than a third of their value in a matter of days, hitting a low of $7.93 on Dec. 19.

SUFFOLK, Va. (AP) – The United Church of Christ’s endorsement of same-sex marriage wasn’t the only disagreement Suffolk Christian Church had with the national group.

“Although for a lot of people, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said the Rev. Michael D. Halley, minister of the 145-year-old church, which agreed by more than a two-thirds majority last fall to leave the 1.3 million-member denomination.

The action was in response to the vote by the UCC’s General Synod, a biennial meeting of delegates from member churches, affirming “equal marriage rights for couples regardless of gender.”

Congregations also were asked to oppose campaigns that advocate constitutional amendments to limit marriage according to gender. Virginia is among the states with such a campaign. If the General Assembly votes again this year, as it did last year, to ban same-sex civil unions, the measure could go before the state’s voters as a constitutional amendment this fall.

The synod does not dictate policy to member churches, and ministers are not required to provide marriage rites for same-sex couples.

The synod’s action made the church the first major Christian denomination to endorse same-sex marriage. The United Church of Christ already was the only major Protestant denomination to allow ordination for gays and lesbians.