MONTGOMERY (AP) – A Web site operated by the Alabama Department of Homeland Security that identified gay rights organizations and anti-abortion groups among those that could include terrorists has been removed from the Internet after the agency received complaints about the site.

The Web site listed different types of terrorists, including “single issue terrorists,” which it said can come from groups that rally behind specific causes. Those listed as possibly spawning terrorists: environmentalists, anti-genetic activists, animal rights advocates, opponents of abortion, anti-war activists and gay rights supporters.

The director of the department, Jim Walker, said his agency received a number of calls and e-mails from people who said they felt the Web site unfairly targeted certain people just because of their beliefs. He said he plans to put the Web site back on the Internet, but will no longer identify specific types of groups.

Howard Bayliss, board chair for the gay and lesbian advocacy group Equality Alabama, said he doesn’t understand why advocates of gay rights would be included on the list.

“Our group has only had peaceful demonstrations. I’m deeply concerned we’ve been profiled in this discriminatory matter,” Bayliss said.

Allison Neal, attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, said she has looked at parts of the Web site and is concerned about anything that pinpoints people “exercising their constitutional right to protest” as potential terrorists.

Walker said the Web site, which could be reached by links from the department’s main Web page, had been up since spring 2004 and was inspired by a similar Web site in Pennsylvania “where citizens could go and learn about terrorists.” The department’s main Web page is still active.

He said over three years the single-issue Web site got a relatively small number of hits and stirred little interest, until recently when it apparently became the subject of Internet blogs.

“We got 20,000 hits in one day and we started getting calls from people who were offended by it,” Walker said. He said he does not have a problem with the site.

“Just because people are listed, that doesn’t make them extremists. But sometimes people will go to extremes,” he said, citing examples of people who have bombed abortion clinics.

But Walker said because the Web site did not list every possible example of single-issue terrorism, he has decided to eliminate the examples.

“Because all of them are not listed, maybe we shouldn’t list just a handful,” Walker said.

The Web site describes single-issue extremists as people who feel they are trying to create a better world.

“Single issue extremists are not trying to fight a cheap war or overthrow our government,” the Web site said.

The site says that in some communities, law enforcement officers consider certain single-issue groups to be a threat to their communities.

“Single issue extremists often focus on issues that are important to all of us. However, they have no problem crossing the line between legal protest and … illegal acts, to include even murder, to succeed in their goals,” the site says.

Birmingham attorney Eric Johnston, president of the Alabama Pro Life Coalition, said he wasn’t surprised when he learned about the Web site.

“I’m concerned about any list of people doing social justice work that describes us as terrorists. I think that should be a deep concern to all of us,” Johnston said. “Our group’s main mission is educational. The thought that we would somehow be harboring terrorists escapes me.”

State Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, the first openly gay member of the Alabama Legislature, said it concerns her whenever people are singled out by the government simply because of what they believe.

“I’ve been an advocate for these types of issues all my life,” said Todd, the longtime director of AIDS Alabama.

DENVER (AP) – Gay people would be protected from being fired based on their sexual orientation under a bill signed into law Friday by Gov. Bill Ritter.

Lawmakers have passed similar bills in the last two years but they were vetoed by former Gov. Bill Owens.

People who think they were fired because of their sexual orientation would be able to file a lawsuit against the employer.

The measure originally also would have made it illegal to consider someone’s religion in hiring and firing decisions. But lawmakers amended it to allow small religious organizations to give preference to people who support their religious values.

The measure (Senate Bill 25) was one of 16 bills Ritter signed Friday. He also approved a measure (Senate Bill 139) that will allow out-of-town lawmakers who live in Denver during the legislative session to collect about another $6,200 a year in living expenses.

Their per diem increases from $99 a day to about $150 under a federal index. A proposal to increase expenses for metro-area lawmakers from $45 a day was rejected.

Until this year, some lawmakers have supplemented their expenses by accepting cash gifts to help support the operation of their offices as well as accepting free meals from lobbyists. Last year, lawmakers outlawed cash gifts and then voters passed Amendment 41, banning lobbyists from giving any gifts to lawmakers.

DES MOINES (AP) – Gays and lesbians in Iowa will get new protections from discrimination in housing, education and a host of other areas under legislation signed into law Friday.

“The civil rights struggle has defined our country for generations,” said Gov. Chet Culver. “This has been a nearly 20-year fight up at the Legislature. We are here to celebrate one more victory.”

The measure Culver signed adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of traits included in Iowa’s civil rights law, which already banned discrimination based on such factors as race and ethnicity.

With the signing, Iowa becomes the nation’s 19th state to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The civil rights expansion was one of two major victories for gay rights activists during this year’s Legislature. Culver already has signed a measure that adds sexual orientation to a list of traits protected from bullying and requires schools to report incidents of bullying.

Praise for the measure was not unanimous.

Speaking Friday on the Iowa Public Television show “Iowa Press,” former legislator Chuck Hurley denounced the new law.

“This is legislative and cultural malpractice,” said Hurley, who heads the conservative Iowa Family Policy Center. He said the measure gives gays and lesbians special rights.

Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, Democratic floor manager of the measure, sharply disagreed. She said the measure simply bans what has become routine discrimination against gays and lesbians.

“It’s about ending discrimination,” Wessel-Kroeschell said on the program. “It certainly isn’t about special rights.”

Des Moines businessman Rich Eychaner, a prominent gay activist, said the signing ceremony capped a generation-long fight for equal rights.

“I’ve been working on this for 30 years,” Eychaner said.

BALTIMORE (AP) – United Methodist clergy in Baltimore are asking for the denomination’s highest legal authority to review a bishop’s decision to reappoint a transgender pastor to lead a city congregation.

Bishop John R. Schol decided last week to continue the appointment of the Rev. Drew Phoenix as pastor of St. John’s United Methodist Church.

Phoenix, 48, has led St. John’s for nearly five years. In the past year, he changed his name from Ann Gordon and received medical treatment to become a man.

The Methodist church bans sexually active gay clergy but does not have any rules about transgender pastors.

Clergy of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church have asked for a decision of law on whether transgender people are eligible for appointment as pastors, said Wayne DeHart, the conference’s director of human resources.

Under church procedure, Schol would issue a decision within a month, which would be reviewed by the Judicial Council, the Methodist equivalent of the U.S. Supreme Court. The council next meets in October. Its decisions are final, according to the United Methodists’ Web site.

UMAction, a conservative Methodist organization, has called for the General Conference, an international Methodist body that meets next year, to develop rules on transgender pastors.

“I think instinctively most church people would say there are some theological problems with gender change, but they don’t know how to articulate the arguments, and expect the church to offer a teaching on the subject,” UMAction director Mark Tooley said.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia on Saturday consecrated the Very Rev. Shannon S. Johnston as bishop coadjutor in a ceremony long on music and short on discussion of the issues that have roiled the diocese over the last few years.

As bishop coadjutor, Johnston will be next in line to lead the 195-congregation diocese when the Rt. Rev. Peter J. Lee retires.

The officiant at the two-hour service at Washington National Cathedral called on anyone who questioned Johnston’s ability to lead the diocese to step forward – no one did.

There was no direct mention of the schism that has split the faith since the 2003 consecration of the first openly gay bishop, New Hampshire’s V. Gene Robinson. Conservative Episcopalians – mostly overseas – have called the American church’s growing acceptance of gay relationships a “satanic attack” on the denomination, and organized to form a rival denomination in the U.S. under Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria.

The break led 13 Virginia churches to split from the U.S. church, including two of the state’s most prominent and largest Episcopal parishes: Truro Church in Fairfax and The Falls Church in Falls Church.

The service instead focused on a comparison of Johnston to Augustine of Canterbury, who’s credited with bringing Christianity to England.

The Rt. Rev. J. Neil Alexander, bishop of Atlanta and Johnston’s longtime friend, said during his sermon, “To those who try to convince our church’s decline is inevitable, I say, ‘Not so fast.

“Raising up a bishop … is a bold reminder to ourselves and to the world, that the mission of Jesus was reconciliation,” he said.

Alexander stopped short of discussing specific issues, though he did say Johnston would make a good advocate for people facing “unrighteous discrimination because they are differently blessed.”