LITTLE ROCK (AP) – A bill that would ban gays and other unmarried couples from being foster parents or adopting children is being held in the state Senate because its sponsor still hopes to attach a clause that would make it effective immediately upon signing.

A Senate vote Monday failed to add an emergency clause to the bill by Sen. Shawn Womack, R-Mountain Home. Senators voted 20-7 last week to pass the bill, but without reaching the 24-vote mark needed to add the clause.

After Monday’s vote, Womack said he would make a decision within a day whether to try again or to simply send the bill over to the House as the legislative session begins to wind down.

“The emergency clause is just going to save us three-and-a-half or four months,” Womack said. “I would like to have it go into effect now but I don’t want to lose the whole bill because of three months.”

However, Womack said he might have the votes if “we could get everybody in the room at the same time.” The emergency clause vote received 21 votes to pass Monday, with seven “no” votes and seven senators not voting.

The bill would reinstate a ban on gay foster parents that was struck down by the Arkansas Supreme Court last year. Beebe has said he would support reinstating the ban if it were constitutional, but he has not said whether he would sign Womack’s bill if it comes to his desk.

Beebe has noted that Womack’s proposal – which also would bar unmarried couples living together from adopting or fostering children – goes beyond the ban addressed by the court.

House Speaker Benny Petrus said the foster parents measure will either be assigned to the House Judiciary Committee or to the Committee on Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs after it leaves the Senate.

HARTFORD (AP) – Federal funding cuts are forcing layoffs and service reductions at agencies that help Hartford and New Haven residents who are infected with HIV and AIDS, advocates say.

A new federal formula boosts grants to cities where new AIDS cases have spiked, replacing an old funding calculation based on the number of people living with the illness.

Coordinators of programs that provide services to people with AIDS and HIV in Connecticut cities say the new formula has curtailed their ability to offer housing assistance, drug and mental health treatment, medical case management and other support.

AIDS Project Hartford has laid off half of its case managers, leaving five managers to coordinate care for 200 to 300 people who are mostly very poor and seriously ill, said Paul Botticello, its executive director.

“What we’re doing now is sitting down with a list and figuring out who can be on their own and who is less vulnerable – and who is going to spiral downward without help,” he said.

About 5,000 people in New Haven and Fairfield counties have HIV and AIDS, and about 3,000 more live in Hartford, Tolland and Middlesex counties, officials said.

Hartford anticipated about $4 million in its annual allocation of federal AIDS money on March 1, but received about half that amount. New Haven expected more than $6.6 million, and got about $3.3 million.

Some additional money is expected next month, but AIDS advocates say it will not come close to filling the gap.

Much of the federal funding comes from the Ryan White CARE Act, which allocates about $600 million nationwide to help large cities.

This year, the formula was changed to provide more money to cities that have experienced a spike in new AIDS cases, said Tina Cheatham, a spokesperson for the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, which administers the Ryan White AIDS program.

Under the new formula, cities reporting a minimum of 2,000 new cases of full-blown AIDS from 2001 through 2005 were eligible for the biggest grants.

During that period, Hartford reported 1,132 new AIDS cases, and New Haven reported 1,749 new cases, bumping both cities into a lower funding tier.

AIDS advocates worry the Connecticut programs are being inadvertently punished for keeping patients healthy enough to stop HIV infections from developing into life-threatening AIDS.

They plan to ask the state General Assembly for money to fill the funding gap, but say they are not optimistic.

“State legislatures don’t deal with the federal budget, but they need to know these cuts are affecting their community,” said Shawn Lang, public policy director at the Connecticut AIDS Resource Coalition.

LARGO (AP) – One of five commissioners who voted to fire a transsexual city manager said his management style, not his lifestyle, led to the dismissal.

Largo City Commissioner Gay Gentry said City Manager Steve Stanton was a “hard-nosed, my-way-or-the-highway” boss who expected more understanding of his personal situation than he showed to some of his roughly 1,200 employees in 14 years as the city’s top official.

“Suddenly the rules were changing and he was asking to be dealt with in a different way than he was dealing with people,” Gentry said.

Commissioners voted 5-2 early Saturday to fire Stanton from his $140,000-a-year job. Stanton was forced last month to reveal he was a transsexual and planned to live as a woman and eventually pursue a sex-change operation.

Stanton defended the employment decisions he made, including firing a public works employee who stayed home with his elderly mother when a hurricane was approaching.

“Every one of those employment decisions were correct and proper,” Stanton said.

Stanton and his attorney said the commissions’ two votes to fire him in the last month are discriminatory. They have not said if he will sue the city. His employment contract says he can be fired without cause at any time.

Stanton, 48, said he plans to concentrate on the transition from life as a man to life as a woman and will begin the process of legally changing his name to Susan. He said the cause of transsexual rights was advanced by the attention surrounding his fight to keep his job.

“I’m on cloud nine. It went super. It went great,” Stanton said of his failed appeal. “This is not about Steve keeping his job exclusively. It was about supplying information and education about something that people just don’t understand.”

TWIN FALLS (AP) – A southern Idaho man who reportedly told police he is HIV-positive has been charged with six counts of violating a state law that requires a person with the virus that causes AIDS to notify sexual partners.

Twin Falls resident Matthew Milligan, 37, was charged in fifth District Court last week after two women reported having unprotected sex with him.

Milligan was being held in the Twin Falls County Jail on $50,000 bond.

Both women told police that Milligan never warned them that he was HIV positive.

According to court documents, Milligan told Chris Fullmer, a Twin Falls police detective, that he was serving time in a Texas prison when he became infected with HIV in 2002.

The first woman said a friend told her Milligan knew he was HIV positive. Four days later, on March 8, the woman went to police to report she had unprotected sex with Milligan three times.

Through her, police located a second woman, who also reported she had unprotected sex three times with Milligan in the last three months. She said Milligan never told her he was HIV positive until sometime in March.

CHICAGO (AP) – Two suburban Chicago students filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court claiming their high school violated one of the students’ civil rights by not letting her wear an anti-gay T-shirt.

Heidi Zamecnik, 17, of Naperville, and Alexander Nuxoll, 14, of Bolingbrook, are students at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville.

In response to a National Day of Silence event in April 2006, Zamecnik wore a shirt to school that read “MY DAY OF SILENCE, STRAIGHT ALLIANCE” on the front and “BE HAPPY, NOT GAY” on the back, according to the suit filed Wednesday.

On the Day of Silence, students can refrain from speaking as an effort to highlight discrimination against homosexuals.

According to the suit, one school administrator ordered Zamecnik to remove the T-shirt and another official ordered her to cross out “NOT GAY” with a marker.

The suit alleges Zamecnik suffered unlawful discrimination and humiliation because school officials didn’t agree with her viewpoint.

Calls to the Indian Prairie School District and Neuqua Valley High School were not immediately returned Thursday morning.

The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian litigation group, is representing Zamecnik. Gary McCaleb, senior counsel for the group, said the organization has filed at least eight similar lawsuits nationwide.

McCaleb said the Alliance Defense Fund is trying to “enable Christian students to express a contrasting viewpoint on homosexuality.”