PHOENIX (AP) – A judge may soon decide whether a same-sex initiative can stay on the state ballot this fall.

The Arizona Together organization filed the lawsuit, saying the initiative is unconstitutional because it violates the state’s “single subject” rule by asking voters to decide on two distinct issues on the ballot.

They contend that voters are being asked to decide same-sex marriage and domestic partnerships.

The initiative would define marriage as a union between one man and one woman and would prevent any legal status similar to marriage, including civil unions and domestic partnerships.

Lawyers for the Protect Marriage Arizona initiative argued the amendment addresses a single subject and both provisions “act together.”

Glen Lavy, an attorney representing Protect Marriage Arizona, said the goal of the amendment is to define marriage between one man and one woman.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Douglas Rayes will likely decide this week whether the Protect Marriage Arizona initiative can stay on the ballot.

Both sides said they would appeal to the state Supreme Court if they lose.

Arizona Together attorneys argued that in addition to prohibiting same-sex marriages, the initiative would ban civil unions and domestic partnerships throughout the state, repealing health and other benefits established in Tucson, Phoenix and Tempe, among other places.

Protect Marriage Arizona does support doing away with domestic-partner benefits, but proponents argued that individuals could obtain benefits without the designation of domestic partner.

The case and all the expected appeals must be decided by Aug. 31, before ballots are printed.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (AP) – A man convicted of killing a high school classmate who revealed his homosexuality was released Aug. 5 after years of being rejected for parole, his attorney said.

Robert Rosenkrantz, 39, walked out of the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo about 8:30 a.m. after two decades behind bars, said attorney Don Miller.

His parole officer picked him up and drove him to stay with family members in the Los Angeles area, Miller said.

“He was delighted to finally be free after 20 years,” Miller said.

Rosenkrantz of Calabasas was imprisoned for the 1985 slaying of his boyhood friend, Steven Redman. The 17-year-old boy was shot 10 times after revealing Rosenkrantz was gay.

Rosenkrantz testified that he intended to shoot up Redman’s car, but killed his friend when he used an anti-gay slur.

Rosenkrantz was told he would be eligible for parole after serving nine years in prison and was a model prisoner, but was denied release several times.

Superior Court Judge David Wesley said earlier this year Rosenkrantz’s rights had been violated, finding that continuing parole rejections had turned his sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole into a sentence without that possibility.

On Aug. 3, the state Supreme Court declined to review an appeal by the California attorney general’s office.

Rosenkrantz earned two college degrees while in prison and had several job offers, said Miller.

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) – A former worker for the Fort Wayne AIDS Task Force said she had no excuse for embezzling nearly $95,000 from the agency over a seven-year period.

Paula Lamb, 53, was sentenced Aug. 3 to five months in prison after a federal judge accepted a plea agreement. Lamb pleaded guilty to embezzlement in April. In return, federal prosecutors dropped a charge of mail fraud.

Lamb told U.S. District Court Judge Theresa L. Springmann that there was no excuse for her actions.

Prosecutors said Lamb, who worked as an administrative assistant at the organization, used its credit cards, transferred money and wrote checks to herself, then spent the money at Wal-Mart, amazon.com and QVC.

She also was sentenced to five months on home detention followed by three years of supervised release. As part of her probation, she will not be allowed to open any credit lines unless approved in advance by her probation officer.

Lamb also was ordered to repay the money.

PITTSBURGH, Penn. (AP) – The leader of a network of conservative Episcopal dioceses says the global Anglican Communion will unravel unless the archbishop of Canterbury helps U.S. conservatives distance themselves from the Episcopal Church.

Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan said that if Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams fails to address the concerns of U.S. conservatives “any hope for a Communion-unifying solution slips away, and so does the shape and leadership of the Anglican Communion as we have known them.”

Duncan made the remarks July 31 at a meeting of the Anglican Communion Network, which represents 10 Episcopal dioceses and more than 900 parishes with traditional views of the Bible.

Conservatives oppose the 2003 consecration of the first openly gay Episcopal bishop – V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. They also oppose the June election of the new Episcopal presiding bishop, Nevada Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, either because they reject ordaining women or because Jefferts Schori supports ordaining gays and lesbians and blessing same-sex relationships.

Seven of the 10 network dioceses have appealed to Williams as the spiritual head of the world’s Anglicans to appoint another U.S. national leader for them. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. arm of the 77 million-member world Anglican Communion.

Williams has suggested that a two-tier Anglican fellowship, with traditionalists on gay clergy issues having a stronger voice, might be a way to preserve unity within the faith. But he has not appointed a leader for U.S. conservatives.

Separately, the Union of Black Episcopalians met last week in Richmond, Va., with speakers telling the group that the denomination’s focus on gay issues was distracting it from fighting social problems such as racism and poverty.

“We waste our time trying to figure out who’s sleeping with whom, instead of being about doing the work of mission and ministry,” the Rev. Sandye Wilson, the group’s immediate past president, told an applauding crowd. “Don’t get sidetracked.”

YORK, Penn. (AP) – An attorney said he has been unable, despite more than two dozen attempts, to serve a lawsuit on members of a fundamentalist Kansas church that protests at military funerals across the nation.

Attorney Sean Summers, who represents the family of a Marine whose funeral was picketed by members of the Westboro Baptist Church, filed a motion in federal court asking permission to post the complaint at the church and mail it to the defendants.

“They know about the lawsuit. They just haven’t allowed themselves to be served,” said Summers, an attorney for Albert Snyder of York.

Snyder, the father of Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder of Westminster, Md., filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., in June that seeks unspecified damages from the church. The younger Snyder, 20, died March 3 after an accident in the Anbar province of Iraq.

Westboro members protested during services held for the Marine at a Westminster church.

The church and the Rev. Fred Phelps maintain that the military deaths in Iraq are God’s punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality. They typically carry signs with slogans such as “God Hates Fags” and “Thank God for IEDs,” a reference to the roadside bombs used by insurgents.

In the attorney’s motion filed this week, a private detective who delivers court documents listed 27 dates and times that he said he attempted to serve copies of the federal complaint to Phelps and other defendants.

Church member Shirley Phelps-Roper, however, said the group’s protests are very visible and they should be easy to find.

“If there is a person who is trying to serve us in this community, unless they’re lazy, there is no reason why they shouldn’t have been able to serve us,” Phelps-Roper said. “Hello! Do you need a road map?”

A ruling on the motion could take a month, Summers said.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told a crowd on Aug. 3 they need to turn out the votes for a same-sex marriage ban amendment to South Carolina’s constitution in November and show “marriage still means something.”

The Republican governor was in South Carolina as chair of the National Governors Association, which met in Charleston last weekend. He was also helping raise money for Mike Campbell, who lost his GOP runoff bid for lieutenant governor in June.

Huckabee, who is pondering a 2008 presidential bid, helped a same-sex union constitutional ban pass in Arkansas in 2004 with 75 percent of voters approving.

South Carolina voters will decide in November on ballots with an amendment that says marriage is between one man and one woman.

Marriage needs protection, Huckabee told people gathered at the “Celebration of Classic Marriage” event to honor a couple who said their vows 74 years ago

Amendment opponents say Huckabee and others are pandering.

Huckabee is among out-of-state politicians “seeking support in South Carolina for their own future presidential bids,” said Asha Leong, the campaign manager for the South Carolina Equality Coalition, a group leading anti-amendment efforts. “South Carolinians really want to hear from other South Carolinians about what the family discrimination amendment means for us all.”

While states have passed bans, efforts to change the U.S. Constitution have failed.

Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, said some have argued the U.S. Constitution is a sacred document that shouldn’t be changed.

But following that logic would, among other things, leave women without the right to vote, he said. The Constitution, “precious as it is, was written to be changed. The holy Bible, on the other hand, is a divine document. It was not written to be changed by us.”

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, also a Republican, is also pushing the amendment. “You’ve drifted a long way when you have to actually go about the business of defining what marriage is,” Sanford said.

State Attorney General Henry McMaster said a change in the state’s constitution keeps courts and the Legislature from opening the law here to same-sex marriages. In a Palmetto Family Council mailer this month, McMaster says marriage is on trial with the November vote.

But Leong says this vote is no trial, and countered that the amendment isn’t needed because state law already limits marriages.

“This vote is really about the civil and human rights of everyone in this state and how all of us deserve equality,” she said.

HOUSTON (AP) – A Houston police sergeant who is transitioning from male to female has voluntarily transferred to the city’s dispatch center until the gender change is complete.

In June, Sgt. Jack Oliver went public that he has begun medical treatment to have his gender reassigned and become Julia Oliver.

The patrol sergeant has been receiving hormones for several months now and has told officers she would like to be called Julia at work.

Before undergoing gender corrective surgery, Oliver will have to live as a woman 24 hours a day for an entire year. Oliver’s new job is now allowing the officer a chance to comply.

“It was mutually negotiated, and we are happy with the outcome,” Phyllis R. Frye, Oliver’s lawyer, wrote in response to e-mailed questions.

Frye emphasized that Oliver had voluntarily transferred to the dispatch center effective last week to supervise dispatchers until the gender transition is complete.

“She remains employed and was received very well and courteously in her new position,” said Frye, who also is a transgender woman. “She is being treated well. She is working and presenting fully and full-time as a woman with a new police ID that has her woman’s photo.”

Sgt. Nate McDuell, a Houston Police Department spokesperson, confirmed the move was voluntary.

“She basically chose to transfer into that division and will be there until she tries to transfer somewhere else,” McDuell said. “She has the option of any officer to apply for a transfer and, if qualified, get it.”

Oliver’s salary and rank will remain the same.

The 49-year-old Oliver is divorced and has five grown children who range in age from 18 to 30. She plans to remain on the force for at least seven more years.

Oliver believes she is the first member of the Houston Police Department to make this change but other officers across the country have done it.

ST. GEORGE, Utah (AP) – Police are pledging to crack down on public sex and cruising in city parks after making their first-ever Tonaquint Park lewdness bust.

A 54-year-old St. George man and a 53-year-old Springville man were arrested on July 29 and charged with lewdness in a public park.

Police Sgt. Craig Harding said officers patrolling the park heard noise coming from the restroom and from outside were able to see one man touch the other in a sexual manner.

“Any kid could have been exposed to this kind of activity, which is outrageous,” Harding said.

The park purportedly has gained a reputation as a cruising spot for men to hook up.

“We heard there was possibly some gay stuff going on, and I have my officers patrol that area,” Lt. Dave Moss said. “If there’s people down there trying to hook up, they usually leave and go somewhere else.”

Harding said: “We’re going to cruise it more. We’re going to work it undercover and try to stamp this out.”

Leland Young, a gay community activist in St. George, said the community does not want people to behave badly in a park, but some fear the police will go beyond cracking down on public sex.

“There’s been harassment on some levels. They’re not going up to the heterosexual community and saying, ‘What are you doing in the park?’” Young said.

Police denied targeting people for being gay.

“We can’t target people. We can’t target groups. We can’t target cultures, but we can target criminal behavior,” Harding said.