LITTLE ROCK (AP) – Supporters of a ban on gay foster and adoptive parents say they’ve written up several drafts of a similar measure they may try to put on the ballot next year.

Jerry Cox, director of the Arkansas Family Council, said the group has not yet decided whether to try and get the ban on the ballot as a proposed constitutional amendment or initiated act next fall. Cox said the group has been working on the language for such a ban.

“We’ve not made any final decision to do anything at this point other than come up with a very solid draft of a proposal that could be done,” Cox said. “We have been working on that pretty steady since the session ended and we’re now down to draft J.”

Legislation barring gays and lesbians and unmarried couples from fostering or adopting passed the Senate, but failed before the House Judiciary Committee during this year’s session. The measure would have reinstated a ban on gay foster parents struck down by the Arkansas Supreme Court last year.

Cox said his group is asking attorneys from other states to review the draft of the proposal. He said the proposal would be similar to the ban defeated during this year’s legislative session.

To place a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot, supporters would have to gather signatures equal to 10 percent of the ballots cast in last year’s governor’s election, or about 78,000. An initiated act would require 8 percent of the votes cast, or around 62,000 signatures.

Rita Sklar, executive director of the Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, has said she didn’t believe reinstating the ban would find widespread support. The ACLU represented the four plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to the ban’s repeal.

“I don’t think Arkansans want discrimination written into the constitution,” Sklar said.

CHICAGO (AP) – A girl and her grandparents have sued the Chicago Board of Education, alleging that a substitute teacher showed the R-rated film Brokeback Mountain in class.

The lawsuit claims that Jessica Turner, 12, suffered psychological distress after viewing the movie in her eighth-grade class at Ashburn Community Elementary School last year.

The film, which won three Oscars, depicts two cowboys who conceal their homosexual affair.

Turner and her grandparents, Kenneth and LaVerne Richardson, are seeking around $500,000 in damages.

“It is very important to me that my children not be exposed to this,” said Kenneth Richardson, Turner’s guardian. “The teacher knew she was not supposed to do this.”

According to the lawsuit filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court, the video was shown without permission from the students’ parents and guardians.

The lawsuit also names Ashburn principal Jewel Diaz and a substitute teacher, referred to as “Ms. Buford.”

The substitute asked a student to shut the classroom door at the West Side school, saying: “What happens in Ms. Buford’s class stays in Ms. Buford’s class,” according to the lawsuit.

Richardson said his granddaughter was traumatized by the movie and had to undergo psychological treatment and counseling.

In 2005, Richardson complained to school administrators about reading material that he said included curse words.

“This was the last straw,” he said. “I feel the lawsuit was necessary because of the warning I had already given them on the literature they were giving out to children to read. I told them it was against our faith.”

Messages left over the weekend with CPS officials were not immediately returned.

BOSTON (AP) – Gov. Deval Patrick warned Thursday, May 10, that Massachusetts will be crippled by a “political circus” if a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in the only U.S. state that currently allows it makes it to a statewide vote.

The Democratic governor, speaking to reporters a day after lawmakers delayed a vote on the proposed amendment, said he was actively lobbying legislators to kill the amendment.

“If this does get to a popular ballot, there is very little other business that will get done in Massachusetts politics and policy making while that is pending,” Patrick said.

The proposed amendment declares marriage to be only between a man and a woman and needs the backing of 25 percent – or at least 50 lawmakers – in two successive sittings of the Legislature to make the 2008 ballot. About 57 lawmakers support the amendment, advocates on both sides of the issue agree.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2003 that the state constitution guarantees gay men and lesbians the right to marry.

HARRISBURG (AP) – A sperm donor who helped a lesbian couple conceive two children is liable for child support under a state appeals-court ruling that a legal expert believes might be the first of its kind.

A Superior Court panel has ordered a Dauphin County judge to establish how much Carl L. Frampton Jr. would have to pay to the birth mother of an 8-year-old boy and 7-year-old girl.

“I’m unaware of any other state appellate court that has found that a child has, simultaneously, three adults who are financially obligated to the child’s support and are also entitled to visitation,” said New York Law School professor Arthur S. Leonard, an expert on sexuality and the law.

But Frampton, 60, of Indiana, Pa., died suddenly of a stroke in March, leaving lawyers involved in the case with different theories about how his death may affect the precedent-setting case.

Jodilynn Jacob, 33, and Jennifer Lee Shultz-Jacob, 48, moved in together as a couple in 1996, and were granted a civil-union license in Vermont in 2002. In addition to conceiving the two children with the help of Frampton – a longtime friend of Shultz-Jacob’s – Jacob also adopted her brother’s two older children, now 12 and 13.

But the women’s relationship fell apart, and Jacob and the children moved out of their Dillsburg, Pa. home in February 2006.

Shortly afterward, a court awarded her about $1,000 a month in support from Shultz-Jacob. Shultz-Jacob later lost an effort to have the court force Frampton to contribute support – a decision that the Superior Court overturned April 30.

Jacob, who now lives in Harrisburg, Pa. said Frampton provided some financial support over the years and gradually took a greater interest in the children.

“Part of the decision came down because he was so involved with them,” Jacob said Wednesday. “It wasn’t that he went to the (sperm) bank and that was it. They called him Papa.”

The process was very informal – Jacob was inseminated at home.

Lori Andrews, a Chicago-Kent College of Law professor with expertise in reproductive technology, said as many as five people could claim some parental status toward a single child if its conception involved a surrogate mother, an egg donor and a sperm donor.

“The courts are beginning to find increased rights for all the parties involved,” she said. “Most states have adoption laws that go dozens of pages, and we see … few laws with a comprehensive approach to reproductive technology.”

In his written opinion requiring Frampton to help pay for the child’s support, Superior Court Judge John T.J. Kelly Jr. noted that Frampton spent thousands of dollars on the children, including purchases of toys and clothing.

“Such constant and attentive solicitude seems widely at variance with the support court’s characterization of (him) having ‘played a minimal role in raising and supporting’ the children,” Kelly said.

The children knew he was their biological father and attended his funeral, but Frampton opposed the effort to compel support from him.

“We made the argument that, according to Pennsylvania law as it stands, there can really only be two adult individuals that can be held liable for support in a child-custody case,” said Frampton’s lawyer, Matthew Aaron Smith.

Shultz-Jacob’s lawyer, Heather Z. Reynosa, wants Frampton’s support obligation to be made retroactive to when Jacob first filed for support. Frampton’s Social Security survivor benefits may also help reduce Shultz-Jacob’s monthly obligation.

It’s unclear how the child-support guidelines, which assume two parents, will be adapted to account for three parents.

“That’s what’s going to be interesting, because there’s not a whole lot of guidance out there,” Reynosa said.

The state Supreme Court is currently considering a similar case, in which a sperm donor wants to enforce a promise made by the mother that he would not have to be involved in the child’s life. That biological father was ordered to pay $1,520 in monthly support.

About two-thirds of states have adopted versions of the Uniform Parentage Act that can shield sperm donors from being forced to assume parenting responsibilities. Pennsylvania has no such law.

BURLINGTON (AP) – Police say vandalism to the R-U-1-2? Community Center is being investigated as a hate crime against gays and lesbians.

Police say sometime overnight Wednesday, May 9, someone threw bricks through some of the center’s windows.

Several windows were broken, scattering glass all over the inside of the building. Damages are estimated to be around several hundred dollars. The group’s executive director Kara DeLeonardis said the organization had been working to pass a gender identity discrimination bill, which has upset some people.

“We are saddened and outraged that someone would commit such an act of hate. At the same time this is exactly why we need to continue working for equality, and why we need anti-discrimination protection like the Gender Identity Non-discrimination bill that is on its way to the governor’s desk,” she said.