FARGO (AP) – Ryan Thoreson’s mother says the family is still absorbing the news that he is one of 32 people in the country chosen as Rhodes scholars for 2007.

The Harvard University student got the news on Nov. 18 after he and 15 other regional finalists interviewed for the honor.

“All along, he kept saying it’s really an honor just to be a finalist,” said his mother, Sue Thoreson.

Ryan Thoreson, 22, will use the scholarship to study social anthropology for two years at Oxford University in England beginning next October.

Thoreson majors in government and women, gender and sexuality studies. He is co-chairman of the Harvard Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender & Supporter Alliance as well as a playwright and nationally ranked debater.

Sue Thoreson thinks her son’s social consciousness is what set him apart from the other candidates.

“They’re looking for kids who look like they’ll give back to society once they finish their education,” she said. “Ryan will actually do it.”

Thoreson wants to work in international human rights and humanitarian law, specializing in gay and lesbian civil rights. After studying at Oxford, he plans to attend law school.

Fargo Shanley teacher Cathy Schwinden, who had Thoreson in class every day for four years, said she was thrilled to hear the news of his scholarship.

“He’s just a wonderful young man,’ Schwinden said.

Thoreson had an internship with the International Lesbian and Gay Association in Brussels last summer, then went to South Africa to interview people for his thesis on the response to AIDS.

He also interned for MTV and wrote for a Let’s Go travel guide on a region of Italy.

Thoreson and Fargo native Marie Strinden wrote the one-woman play, Fargo: A (Mostly) True Story that premiered at Fargo’s Main Avenue Theater earlier this year.

In 2003, Thoreson was recognized with a Fargo Human Relations Award for his work on human rights issues.

BOSTON (AP) – Gov. Mitt Romney asked Massachusetts’ highest court on Nov. 24 to force a proposed anti-same-sex marriage constitutional amendment onto the state’s 2008 ballot if the Legislature fails to vote on it.

The Republican governor, a fierce opponent of same-sex marriage and a possible presidential contender, filed the request with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court after lawmakers put off acting on the question until January. The high court ruled 4-3 in 2003 that the state could no longer deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Romney has said the state Constitution requires legislators to vote on whether the measure should go on the ballot. If they don’t vote when they return Jan. 2, the last day of the legislative session, the court can order the secretary of state to put it on the 2008 ballot, Romney argues.

The postponement of legislative action was widely seen by supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage as a way to kill the measure.

Backers of the question, which would define marriage in Massachusetts as the union of a man and a woman, gathered more than 170,000 signatures of people.

Opponents of the question, including powerful House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, feared they didn’t have the 151 votes needed to kill the measure and instead called for a vote to recess the joint House-Senate session until Jan. 2. Lawmakers approved the recess vote by 109-87.

Since same-sex marriage became legal, more than 8,000 same-sex couples have tied the knot in Massachusetts, the only state to allow same-sex marriage. The ballot measure would ban future same-sex marriages in Massachusetts but leave existing ones intact.

Romney, who opted not to run for a second term as governor this year, is nearing a decision on whether to seek the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

KANSAS CITY (AP) – A man charged with failing to tell sexual partners he was HIV positive was granted more privacy recently when a judge closed a court proceeding to the public.

Citing a 1988 Missouri law, attorneys for 40-year-old Albert L. Spicer succeeded in barring two spectators and a reporter Nov. 14 from a hearing in which the defendant was scheduled to plead guilty to some of the charges.

The state law was intended to protect people who have tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS from suffering discrimination. The law makes police, prosecutors, courts and juries privy to a person’s HIV status, but it does not mention the public’s right to know.

In court, Jackson County Circuit Judge Jay Daugherty delayed Spicer’s hearing while he researched the request from Spicer’s lawyers before deciding to close the proceedings.

“It was with reluctance that the court had to clear the courtroom in order to comply with the statute,” Daugherty said. Before Tuesday, he said, the issue had never been raised by a defendant in his court.

Spicer was charged in October 2004 with two dozen felony counts of recklessly exposing five women in the Kansas City area to HIV by having unprotected sex with them despite knowing he had the virus.

Prosecutors said at the time that one of the women later developed full-blown AIDS.

What happened at Spicer’s hearing Tuesday was unknown because of the judge’s decision to bar the public. But Spicer was still in custody in Jackson County on Friday, and the charges against him remained available for public observation on Missouri’s court records Web site.

Kansas City lawyer Jean Maneke, who specializes in freedom of information issues, said she had not heard of a court hearing being closed under the HIV statute before now.

“When it’s an issue of Missouri constitutional privilege versus a Missouri statute, I think the court might want to err on the side of the constitution,” Maneke said.

A spokesperson for the Missouri attorney general said that office has not issued an opinion on the issue.

Daugherty on Nov. 17 consulted with two of the Legislature’s research attorneys. They found nothing in the statute that authorized closing a criminal hearing to the public.

Violators of the confidentiality law can be subject to civil lawsuits, although there is no criminal penalty.

Kansas has a similar privacy law, in which violators can be charged with a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail.

Such privacy laws specific to HIV or AIDS were designed to protect individuals from being discriminated against or stigmatized, said Paul Feldman, deputy director of the nonprofit Health Privacy Project in Washington.

He said the laws also were pushed by public health officials who wanted to encourage people to be more open about getting an HIV test.

OXFORD (AP) – A Butler County court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a state legislator who challenged Miami University’s same-sex partner benefits policy based on Ohio’s 2004 constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Common Pleas Judge Charles Pater ruled on Nov. 20 that state Rep. Tom Brinkman Jr., R-Cincinnati, had no legal standing to sue the university as a taxpayer.

“The court has affirmed that Mr. Brinkman’s daily life is unaffected when the domestic partners of lesbian and gay university employees have health insurance and he therefore has no standing to bring a lawsuit,” said James P. Madigan, staff attorney for Lambda Legal, a national advocacy group that represented two Miami faculty members, in a news release.

Brinkman said the dismissal was “based on a technicality” and he would appeal.

In the decision, the judge wrote, “Arguably, Brinkman is correct, but he lacks the requisite, adverse legal interest in the dispute.”

Brinkman, the father of two Miami students, has said he doesn’t want his tuition and tax money going to support the policy. The suit, filed last year, contended the benefits violated the state constitution.

“It’s almost one of those things where the operation was successful but the patient died. This time, we have a chance to resuscitate the patient through the appeals court,” Brinkman said.

Miami had asked the court to dismiss the suit in December, saying Brinkman’s interpretation of the constitution was in error.

“Miami University is pleased with this judgment. It means we can continue to provide these benefits uninterruptedly,” said spokesperson Claire Wagner. “The university offers domestic partner benefits because we believe it’s the right thing to do and because it allows us to attract high-quality faculty and staff.”

PROVIDENCE (AP) – The number of newly diagnosed HIV cases in Rhode Island in 2005 were the state’s fewest in the last five years, according to data analyzed by the state Department of Health.

The report shows that 124 new cases were reported last year, or 30 percent fewer than the 178 in 2004.

The report was being released by an HIV/AIDS prevention group in recognition of World AIDS Day, which is typically observed on Dec. 1. The Rhode Island Community Planning Group for HIV Prevention held a red ribbon rally at a Providence school on Nov. 20.

The data also indicate that 2,712 cases of AIDS have been reported in Rhode Island since 1982, the year the first case of the disease was reported.