LOS ANGELES (AP) – One of Southern California’s most influential gay institutions has launched a controversial ad campaign that describes HIV as a “gay disease.”

The L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center’s departure from 20 years of countering the idea of AIDS as a gay plague is designed to reach gay men who have grown complacent about the illness.

The message “HIV is a gay disease” and the tag line “Own It. End It” will appear on billboards and in magazines.

The amount of attention from AIDS awareness groups paid on minority women and others has left gay men – who still represent most of those infected in the U.S. and Western Europe – feeling a false sense of security, proponents of the campaign said.

“A very alarming silence has descended over our community with regard to HIV and AIDS,” said Lorri Jean, chief executive of the Gay & Lesbian Center. “We believe that most people in our community do not understand the degree to which this epidemic continues to be in Los Angeles largely an epidemic among gay and bisexual men.”

Apathy about AIDS among gay men is a serious problem on the West Coast, where most HIV transmission is among men having sex with other men, public health officials said.

The ads, however, have drawn criticism from some, who worry the campaign could further stigmatize the disease and make heterosexual men and women less likely to seek treatment.

“I applaud the desire to have more personal responsibility in the gay community, but this is not the way to achieve it,” said Michael Weinstein, head of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “AIDS is not a gay disease. It’s not an African-American disease. It’s not a Latino disease. It is a disease of the immune system.”

In Los Angeles County, about 75 percent of HIV cases are among men who have had sex with other men. But nationwide, gay and bisexual men account for about half of recent HIV transmission, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Activist Cynthia Davis said the Gay & Lesbian Center’s campaign could erase years of progress in erasing the stigma of AIDS among blacks, a community that is skittish about homosexuality and at high risk for the disease.

“This is ludicrous. It’s ridiculous,” Davis said. “It’s going backward.”

ATLANTA (AP) – The president of the national Christian Coalition says she will establish a new Georgia chapter with a new leader now that the Christian Coalition of Georgia has said it will split from the group.

But Roberta Combs, president of the national Christian Coalition, did not say when that would happen.

“The Christian Coalition – or any group – is not about individuals,” Combs said. “Maybe we can work together in the future.”

Sadie Fields, the chair of the Georgia group, said the split with the Christian Coalition of America was because of the national organization’s liberal “drift.”

Three other states chapters – Alabama, Iowa and Ohio – have also left the Christian Coalition.

Fields said she became concerned by the changing direction of the national organization, which included taking stances on issues like the minimum wage, the environment and Internet law instead of core issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.

Combs agreed that the coalition had begun broadening its agenda. “Family values reach beyond abortion and gay marriage,” she said.

The national Christian Coalition, which claims more than 2 million members, was founded in 1989 by religious broadcaster the Rev. Pat Robertson.

BOISE (AP) – Constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage have passed in all 20 states where they appeared on the ballot.

And political observers are saying Idaho is unlikely to break the trend.

Idahoans will decide whether to amend the state constitution with the ban on Nov. 7, along with voters in seven other states.

In most states where the issue has gone to a vote, same-sex marriage bans have passed overwhelmingly, ranging from a high of 86 percent in favor in Mississippi to Oregon’s 57 percent, the slimmest margin in the country.

Experts say in states like Idaho, where the Legislature voted to place the amendment on the ballot, lawmakers anticipate only benefits and no backlash.

The same-sex marriage bans are expected to pass in all eight states.

Idaho’s amendment may be one of the strictest. It also bars civil unions or domestic partnerships for same-sex couples.

HELENA (AP) – A judge has ruled against a Baptist church that claimed its freedom of speech and religion were violated by a ruling that it should have disclosed work to help a ballot measure.

The issue dates back to 2004’s Constitutional Initiative 96, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman and passed by about a 2-to-1 margin.

The state commissioner of political practices found that Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church in East Helena should have reported its activity in support of the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. The office has not moved to prosecute the case, though.

The office decided the church became an “incidental campaign committee” by holding meetings, distributing petitions and being involved in political activities.

The church argued the state campaign laws are unconstitutional.

Last week, District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula ruled against the church and its lawsuit challenging the commissioner of political practices’ decision.

“In my view, the plaintiffs are wrong,” Molloy wrote. “The state has no right to establish a religion, and it has no right to keep people from practicing the religion of their choice. But nothing in the First Amendment keeps the state from exercising its regulatory authority over the political process, even when the politicking takes place in the ‘sanctuary.’”

Newark (AP) – A steamy memoir by former New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey, who left office amid a sex scandal, has become a best-seller on two lists.

Released Sept. 19, The Confession will be ranked No. 3 in nonfiction hardcover sales in The New York Times book review in the Oct. 8 issue, the newspaper said. The review does not disclose sales figures.

The book ranked No. 1 in biography-autobiography and No. 4 in adult nonfiction based on first-week sales of 15,000 recorded by Nielsen BookScan U.S., The Star-Ledger of Newark reported.

McGreevey, who had largely avoided public statements since leaving office in 2004, promoted the book with several television appearances last month, including a taped interview on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

McGreevey, elected New Jersey governor in 2001, stunned the nation when he announced in August 2004 that he is a “gay American” and would leave office three months later, the result of an extramarital affair with another man.

LITTLE EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP (AP) – Months after the hiring of a transgender substitute teacher roiled parents at an Ocean County elementary school, the woman was rehired with nary a peep from the audience.

Lily McBeth, 72, was one of several substitute teachers the Pinelands Regional Board of Education voted to hire on Sept. 28. None of the handful of residents who attended the meeting spoke on her hiring. McBeth underwent a sex-change operation more than a year ago.

“I think this is a sign of progress, that the community indeed accepts and embraces Lily McBeth’s right to teach in the classroom,” Steven Goldstein, chair of the gay rights group Garden State Equality, told the Asbury Park Press.

McBeth did not attend the Pinelands Regional meeting.

A retired medical marketing executive, McBeth was a father of three who was formerly named William. She also worked as a substitute at Pinelands Regional and in the Little Egg Harbor district before undergoing her sex-change operation.

NEW YORK (AP) – Transgender New Yorkers may soon be able to get new birth certificates that accurately reflect their sexual identity.

Under the proposed new plan, new birth certificates would only indicate a person’s current sexual identity.

New York City’s board of health is expected to decide whether or not to put the proposal up for public comment.

Transgender people have long complained about having a hard time doing things that require a birth certificate.

New York state doesn’t have a law to authorize a change, but it does issue amended birth certificates.

GROVE (AP) – The mother of a 15-year-old boy has accused the Grove School District of unjustly removing her son from school and spreading rumors that he carries the AIDS virus.

Sheila Dawson, who filed a lawsuit on Sept. 16 in Delaware County District Court, said she is leaving the Grand Lake area. Her son now attends school in Missouri and he is not HIV positive, Dawson said.

“I can’t even explain the scars it’s leaving on my son,” Dawson said. “We want to put our children in a place where they are not subjected to this kind of environment.”

School Board member Annie Maxson said the student was offered home-schooling or enrollment in the Grove Alternative Academy, which is designed for students who want to continue their education in a nontraditional setting.

“I believe the school has done everything possible to protect the identity of Ms. Dawson’s son and we have always had his best interests in mind,” Maxson said.

Dawson said her son was not informed of the Alternative Academy. “He was put on homebound status where the school sent a teacher for one to two hours a week to our home,” Dawson said.

Maxson said the lawsuit was turned over to the school’s attorney, Doug Mann, who was unavailable for comment.

Dawson said the rumors started because school officials “believed there was a possibility my son was involved with a student who has AIDS.” Dawson declined comment on whether her son had a relationship with an AIDS-infected student.

The lawsuit states the school failed to remove derogatory graffiti written about her son in the speech and drama classroom and the boys’ bathroom.

Dawson claims Don Barr, Grove Middle School principal, told her son to clean off the graffiti if he wanted it removed.

The lawsuit says Barr removed the student from the school without due process. According to the lawsuit, he told Dawson to “Exit my office, take your son and don’t bring him back,” and to the student said, “You are leaving; I told you to get out.”

OLYMPIA (AP) – Jamie Pedersen, a Seattle attorney and gay rights leader, is the Democrats’ pick for an open state House seat.

Pedersen claimed victory on Sept. 26 in the expensive, hotly contested six-candidate primary in the 43rd District in Seattle. The nomination is tantamount to election in one of the state’s most liberal districts.

Pedersen was the top vote-getter on primary night a week earlier and padded his lead as absentees were counted. His closest competitor, former judge and Seattle City Councilman Jim Street, conceded and said Pedersen has “tremendous potential.”

Pedersen is heavily favored in November over Republican Hugh Foskett, a college student who has raised no money, and Progressive Party candidate Linde Knighton, who is running a shoestring campaign.

Pedersen, well connected in Seattle’s legal community and in local and national gay-rights organizations, has raised about $170,000 for his campaign, leading the primary pack, which collectively raised more than $500,000.

Pedersen hopes to succeed Rep. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, who is in line to move to the state Senate. Both men are openly gay and Murray endorsed him late in the primary, saying he could best fight for marriage equality for gays and lesbians. Pedersen was lead attorney for Lambda Legal in the losing bid to persuade the state Supreme Court to throw out the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.

Pedersen’s election would keep at four the number of openly gay legislators in the House; if elected, Murray would be the Senate’s only openly gay member.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court refused Oct. 2 to consider whether a Texas law making it a crime to promote sex toys shaped like sexual organs is unconstitutional.

An adult bookstore employee in El Paso, Texas, sued the state after his arrest for showing two undercover officers a device shaped like a penis and telling the female officer the device would arouse and gratify her.

The employee, Ignacio Sergio Acosta, says a Texas law outlawing the manufacture, marketing or dissemination of an “obscene device” including those shaped like sex organs is unconstitutional because it prevents individuals from using such devices, violating their right to sexual privacy.

Colorado, Kansas and Louisiana have held such laws unconstitutional, while Georgia, Mississippi and Texas have upheld them, said Acosta’s lawyer in urging the Supreme Court to take the case.

An El Paso County court granted Acosta’s motion to dismiss a criminal complaint against him, but an appeals court reinstated it, saying the Texas law did not infringe on private sexual behavior.

The bar against promoting obscene devices has been found in other court cases not to infringe on a right to use obscene devices at home, the court of appeals for the Eighth District of Texas ruled.

Acosta also said the Texas law should be examined in light of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down a Texas criminal law banning gay sex as an unconstitutional invasion of privacy.

The case is Ignacio Sergio Acosta v. state of Texas, 05-1574.

GREEN BAY (AP) – Both sides raised the specter of judicial interference, as advocates debated pros and cons on Sept. 26 of the proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage that goes before Wisconsin voters Nov. 7.

“This issue boils down to we the people defining marriage, or a judge with an agenda doing it for us,” said Julaine Appling of the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin, which supports the amendment.

“The amendment is designed to prevent the institution of marriage from being redefined by a judge creatively coming up with some new name.”

Opponents contend the amendment would have ramifications for same-sex and unmarried straight couples because it also would bar the state from recognizing any civil union or other legal status similar to marriage.

The result, they argue, could be new restrictions on domestic partner benefits and questions about rights of partners to hospital visits and medical decisions.

“Nobody knows exactly what that wording is going to do,” said Mike Tate of Fair Wisconsin, which opposes the amendment.

“One thing is for sure, a lot of judges, a lot of lawyers and a lot of courts are going to be dragged into this, and the residents of Wisconsin are going to have to read about this for years to come.”

Appling said current benefits between unmarried couples would not be jeopardized.

“We are not going to see benefit structures currently in place taken away by this amendment, nor will local units of government or companies be prohibited from creating such benefits in the future should they choose to,” she said.

“This is about preservation, nothing about punitive action.”

Tate framed it as an issue of fairness.

“It’s a debate about who we are as a people in Wisconsin and how we treat people who live here,” he said. “This is about families that live everywhere in the state and whether we’re going to take away their ability to share health care benefits or raise children under the protection of the law.”

MADISON (AP) – A man has filed a lawsuit in Grant County accusing a University of Wisconsin-Platteville student and another man of attacking him because he’s gay.

Brett Timmerman’s lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for emotional distress and attorney fees.

The lawsuit said Timmerman was an openly gay student attending UW-Platteville last year. It said he and a female friend were walking into a restaurant in Platteville when another student, Oden Waite, and Enove Urias uttered an anti-gay slur. The lawsuit alleged Urias then slapped Timmerman and Waite spit on him.

The suit said Timmerman’s friend tried to intervene, but Waite pushed her aside and spit in Timmerman’s face again. Then Waite allegedly put Timmerman in a headlock and took him to the ground.

“There are people like this who go out there every single day … and do what they do, and it’s not OK and it’s not acceptable,” Timmerman said.

A police officer who happened to be passing by broke up the scuffle.