The council voted 6-1 on Monday to add the protection to city code. The provision mirrors that found in state law.

The state law, which was passed in 2007, bars discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity related to matters of employment, housing, education, public accommodation and credit practices.

In 2001, “sexual orientation” was added to a Des Moines human rights ordinance that bans discrimination based on race, creed and religion.

Under the newly revised ordinance, gender identity means “gender-related identity of a person, regardless of the person’s assigned sex at birth.”

SAVANNAH, Ga. – The Georgia Supreme Court has ruled on a long-simmering property dispute over Georgia’s oldest church, saying a congregation that broke away from the national Episcopal Church in a dispute four years ago must give back the church’s $3 million property in the heart of downtown Savannah.

The breakaway group has continued using the sanctuary of Christ Church since 87 percent of its members voted to split from the Episcopal Church in 2007. The Savannah congregation was among dozens in the U.S. that left the denomination over the affirmation of its first openly gay bishop.

In a ruling that traced Christ Church’s history from its founding in 1733 and examined both state law and church bylaws, the state’s highest court said in a 6-1 decision that the Episcopal Church is the rightful owner of the property. Before the rift, the ruling said, the Savannah congregation had long pledged itself to the denomination’s governing hierarchy, which states that all property belongs to the national church.

Christ Church members had a right “to leave the Episcopal Church and worship as they please, like all other Americans,” Justice David Nahmias wrote in a 45-page opinion. “But it does not allow them to take with them the property that has for generations been accumulated and held by a constituent church of the Protestant Episcopal Church.”

The head of the breakaway group, the Rev. Marc Robertson, has said his side is trying to make a stand for traditional Christian principles, not just win a debate over property rights. The congregation’s attorney, Jim Gardner, said the group is weighing a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Officials with the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia said Monday they look forward to moving back into the Christ Church property. But the Rev. Frank Logue, a top administrator under the diocese’s bishop, said the church is willing to wait until it’s certain the legal challenges have ended.

“We’ve made it clear consistently that we’re going to let the courts act and then we’re going to move,” Logue said. “So we’re sitting patiently.”

Members of the breakaway congregation, meanwhile, insisted the battle was mainly one over theological differences.

The group said it was forced to leave the Episcopal Church because it finds the denomination’s policies on homosexuality to be at odds with biblical teachings.

“The Episcopal Church has sought to exploit the judicial system in an attempt to coerce local congregations to accept its revisionist theology,” said David Reeves, the congregation’s board chairman.

The court’s sole dissenter siding with the breakaway group was Superior Court Judge S. Phillip Brown, who heard the case in the absence of Justice George Carley, Brown wrote that the majority wrongly gave too much weight to the Episcopal Church’s hierarchy and bylaws rather than state laws governing property rights- “an unjust result that is contrary to law in many ways.”

Designed to resemble a Greek temple overlooking Johnson Square, Christ Church has long been known as the “Mother Church of Georgia.” Gen. James Edward Oglethorpe, who founded Georgia as the 13th British colony in 1733, set aside the land for Christ Church in his original plans for Savannah and attended its first worship service.

The roots of the legal dispute date back to the end of the Revolutionary War, when the Savannah church severed ties to the Church of England. Georgia lawmakers voted in 1789 to incorporate the church and granted it a title to the property.

The breakaway group argued that the 18th-century title trumps claims of ownership by the national Episcopal Church, which the Savannah congregation joined years later in 1823.

The state Supreme Court now joins two lower courts in siding with the Episcopal Church after it sued to reclaim the property.

The Rev. Scott A. Benhase, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia, applauded the ruling in a statement Monday but also lamented that the dispute had been divisive for Christians.

“Whatever satisfaction we feel in prevailing in the courts is muted by the knowledge that this decision is painful for some of our brothers and sisters in Christ,” Benhase said.

LOS ANGELES – A Southern California teenager who shot a gay classmate to death during a computer lab class three years ago avoided a retrial by pleading guilty to second-degree murder, a deal that will send him to prison for 21 years.

Brandon McInerney, 17, pleaded guilty to the murder charge Monday, as well as one count each of voluntary manslaughter and use of a firearm, said Ventura County Chief Deputy District Attorney Mike Frawley. McInerney is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 19.

The case drew wide attention because of its shocking premise: McInerney, in a fit of homophobic rage, killed 15-year-old Larry King at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard because he was offended by King’s dress and how the victim interacted with him.

Larry King’s father, Greg King, told KABC-TV he understands why prosecutors agreed to the plea deal.

“I don’t think that 21-year sentence is justice for my son, but I understand the reality that was facing the DA of trying to convict a defendant who was 14 … when he committed the murder,” Greg King said.

Comic Ellen DeGeneres, a lesbian, weighed in on her talk show shortly after the shooting and said gays shouldn’t be treated as second-class citizens.

McInerney was only 14 at the time of the February 2008 shooting. Several jurors said after the teen’s trial earlier this year that he should never have been tried as an adult.

A mistrial was declared in September when jurors couldn’t reach a unanimous decision on the degree of guilt. The panel took a series of votes, the last one with seven jurors in favor of voluntary manslaughter and five supporting either first-degree or second-degree murder. The trial had been moved from Ventura County to Los Angeles because of pretrial publicity.

Frawley said prosecutors agreed to the plea deal because of uncertainty about what might result from a second trial.

“We took that into account and looked at what it would take to protect the community,” Frawley said. “The total time in custody for 25 years will do that.”

The murder conviction will be stayed, and the plea deal calls for McInerney to be given the harshest sentence under California law for voluntary manslaughter- 11 years- and use of a firearm- 10 years, Frawley said. McInerney is ineligible for time served or good behavior because he pleaded guilty to murder.

After serving nearly four years since King’s slaying, McInerney will be released just shy of his 39th birthday. Prosecutors had previously offered a plea deal that would have sent McInerney to prison for 25 years to life, but his attorneys passed.

A phone message left with defense attorney Robyn Bramson was not immediately returned.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said in a statement the plea agreement ends a tragic chapter.

“Ventura County along with communities and school districts everywhere must come together to promote a culture of respect and nurture the true potential found in every individual regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression,” Byard said.

King was shot twice in the back of the head in front of stunned classmates. Authorities maintained the shooting was premeditated and deserving of a murder conviction. During the trial, prosecutors noted at least six people heard McInerney make threats against King in the days before the shooting.

The victim’s mother, Dawn King, revealed Monday that she had contacted school officials four days before the shooting, seeking their cooperation in toning down her son’s behavior, the Los Angeles Times reported.

She said she was told that her son had a civil right to explore his sexual identity.

“I knew, gut instinct, that something serious was going to happen,” she told the Times. “They should have contained him, contained his behavior.”

Prosecutors also contended McInerney embraced a white supremacist philosophy that sees homosexuality as an abomination. Police found Nazi-inspired drawings and artifacts at his house, and a white supremacist expert testified at trial the hate-filled ideology was the reason for the killing.

Prosecutors, however, dropped a hate crime count against McInerney in preparing for a second trial.

Defense attorneys acknowledged McInerney was the shooter but explained he had reached an emotional breaking point after King made repeated, unwanted sexual advances. They also argued their client came from a violent upbringing and juvenile court would have been the best venue to try him.

The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Monday that the congregation of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church voted to prohibit their pastor from legally marrying anyone until she can legally marry same-sex couples.

Marriage ceremonies at the Raleigh church will continue to be conducted but the pastor won’t sign a certificate the state requires to establish a legal marriage.

No one spoke out against the marriage statement Sunday in a gathering that filled a meeting hall with mostly gray-haired churchgoers.

The church near the North Carolina State University campus was kicked out of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1992 after a decision to bless gay marriages. Pastor Nancy Petty is a lesbian.

LONDON – The AIDS epidemic is leveling off and the number of people newly infected with the virus that causes it has remained unchanged since 2007, the United Nations said in a report.

Critics say that the body’s aim of wiping out the disease is overly optimistic, however, considering there is no vaccine, millions remain untreated and donations have slumped amid the economic crisis.

There were 2.7 million new HIV infections last year, approximately the same figure as in the three previous years, said the report released Monday by UNAIDS, the joint United Nations program on HIV and AIDS. The figures largely confirm earlier findings released by the group in June.

At the end of last year, there were about 34 million people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. While that is a slight rise from previous years, experts say that’s due to people surviving longer. Last year, there were 1.8 million AIDS-related deaths, down from 1.9 million in 2009.

The outbreak continues to hit hardest in southern Africa. But while the number of new infections there has fallen by more than 26 percent since the peak in 1997, the virus is surging elsewhere.

In eastern Europe and central Asia, there has been a 250 percent jump in the number of people infected with HIV in the past decade, due largely to the spread among injecting drug users. In North America and western Europe, the outbreak “remains stubbornly steady,” according to the report.

“It’s looking promising, but the numbers are still at a scary level,” said Sophie Harman, a global health expert at City University in London. She was not connected to the UNAIDS report.

In its strategy for the next few years, UNAIDS says it is working toward zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths. Harman said that was an admirable goal but wasn’t sure it was achievable. “They need to get real,” she said. “Maybe they need to aim high but if their main goal is eradication, it’s highly unlikely that will ever happen.”

Dr. Paul De Lay, deputy executive director of UNAIDS, acknowledged the idea of eliminating AIDS infections and deaths is “more of a vision for the future,” and would likely not be accomplished without new tools like a vaccine, which could take several decades. Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for an AIDS-free generation and promised more money for programs in Africa.

De Lay said U.N. strategies will focus on more aggressive prevention and treatment policies, like treating people with HIV earlier. In Africa, people with HIV are not usually treated until their immune system reaches a certain threshold, and officials are now increasingly trying to start treatment before patients get too sick.

Future strategies might also include giving medicines to people at high risk even before they get infected. The World Health Organization is considering how to advise countries with major epidemics on giving drugs to healthy people vulnerable to catching the virus, such as prostitutes, gay men and injecting drug users, as a prevention method.

While studies have shown that could dramatically slow AIDS transmission, experts have voiced concerns about healthy people taking AIDS drugs, which have toxic side effects. It could also encourage drug resistance, and there are already millions of people in developing countries who qualify for treatment but are still waiting for it.

Sharonann Lynch, an HIV policy adviser at Doctors Without Borders, said many African countries are anxious to implement more aggressive strategies and that some are redrafting their guidelines even before official U.N. advice is available. But she said the financial crisis is affecting treatment and that enrollment in some clinics, like in Congo, have stalled or even been suspended. That could allow the epidemic to resurge.

“Just at the moment when we know how to manage HIV, we’re hitting the brakes,” Lynch said. “Without more investment, we’ll be squandering the best chance we have of getting ahead of the new wave of infections.”

___

Online:

http://www.unaids.org

http://www.msf.org

NEW DELHI – An isolated and shunned community of castrated men, transvestites and transgendered people mourned Monday for 15 comrades killed when a fire blazed through a makeshift tent where they had gathered to honor deceased friends.

The fire Sunday night sent the thousands of gathered eunuchs into a panic as people struggled to escape the burning tent, witnesses and police said. In addition to those killed, at least 36 others were injured, most of them elderly.

The term eunuch, or hijra, is used in India to describe a community of people who identify themselves as neither male nor female but as members of a third gender. They traditionally survive by begging, dancing at weddings or blessing newborn babies and are frequently subjected to discrimination.

While the community of 700,000 is often mocked, eunuchs’ prayers and good wishes–and curses if they are angered–are considered powerful by most Indians.

Most eunuchs are shunned by their birth families and live together in communal houses led by a guru or master.

Thousands of eunuchs from around India came to an east Delhi fairground over the weekend for an occasional gathering of the community.

“We were just here to pray for our dead members and the well being of all the children in India and everywhere else,” said Sita, who like many eunuchs uses just one name.

“It’s one of the few times when we can all meet each other.”

The gathering included both Hindus and Muslims and prayers and rituals from both religious groups were part of the ceremony, Sita said.

The tent was packed Sunday and the fire caused people to flee in a frenzy, said Babli, another eunuch.

“The older hijras got hurt in the running and panic,” Babli said.

Acrid smoke hung in the air Monday and small groups of eunuchs were allowed to enter the cordoned-off area to salvage what was left of their belongings. Hundreds of others outside searched for news of their friends and consoled each other.

The members of India’s eunuch community are so used to be ignored or reviled that they lashed out journalists gathered at the site of the tragedy.

“They’re all here just to mock us and make a joke out of us,” Babli said, before being dragged away by friends and chastised for speaking to a reporter. “Even the fire brigade took an hour to reach here. By that time so many of our friends were dead.”

Fire officials said they reached the scene as soon as they could.

Officials were investigating the cause of the fire, believed to be an electrical short.

Ferrandino has led House Democrats in budget discussions as a member of the Joint Budget Committee. He is an openly gay lawmaker who co-sponsored legislation to allow civil unions for same-sex couples this year. The bill failed but it’s widely expected that Ferrandino will try again next year.

Ferrandino was the only nominee for the leadership position. The Denver representative promised to work on gaining a majority for his party after next year’s elections. Republicans have a one-vote advantage in the House.

Pace will serve out his term next year. He resigned his leadership post to focus on a congressional race against Rep. Scott Tipton in the 3rd District.

SAN FRANCISCO – Army Capt. Stephen Hill says he wasn’t trying to score political points when he asked the Republican presidential candidates if they would reinstate the ban on gays serving openly in the U.S. military.

He wasn’t worried that his debate question, posed via a YouTube video recorded in Iraq, would generate boos or reveal his sexual orientation to millions of people, including his superiors and fellow troops.

All Hill was thinking about in September was his husband of four-and-a-half months, Joshua Snyder, in Columbus, Ohio.

Now that “don’t ask, don’t tell” has been lifted, he needed to know if the military would take the next step and recognize his marriage, or if a new president would try to force soldiers like him back into the closet.

“I was looking forward to the future and hoping everybody would realize we are soldiers first, always,” said Hill, 41, an Army reservist who returned last week from his yearlong deployment. “I was hoping `don’t ask, don’t tell’ would be a distant memory for everybody.”

In an interview with The Associated Press, Hill reflected publicly for the first time on his reasons for submitting the pre-recorded question for the Sept. 22 debate, as well as his reaction to the heckles heard around the world; the answer that former Sen. Rick Santorum gave to thunderous applause; and the outrage expressed on his behalf by, among others, his commander in chief.

With Snyder on the telephone, Hill watched the debate live from Iraq at 4 a.m. And this is what he asked: “In 2010, when I was deployed to Iraq, I had to lie about who I was because I’m a gay soldier and I didn’t want to lose my job. My question is, under one of your presidencies, do you intend to circumvent the progress that’s been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?”

Santorum replied that he would reinstitute the ban on open service by gay troops because “any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.”

“What we are doing is playing social experimentation with our military right now. That’s tragic,” he continued. “Leave it alone. Keep it to yourself whether you are heterosexual or homosexual.”

Hill says the fact that he just outed himself on national television had barely registered when he absorbed the boos and Santorum’s answer followed by applause.

“When the actual booing occurred, my gut dropped out, because my first inclination was, did I just do something wrong?” he said. “The answer, obviously, wasn’t very supportive of gay people, and there was a lot of fear of how the Army would take the question.”

He did not have to wait long to find out. At breakfast later that morning, the segment was playing on the chow hall television. Hill immediately tracked down his commander, who told him she had no problem with what he’d done but that she would need to run it up the chain of command. She later relayed the response.

“She said, `What the military’s most concerned with is that you are OK, because it’s a lot of pressure on you and we want to make sure if there is anything we can do to help,”‘ he recalled.

President Barack Obama, about a week later, chided the Republican contenders for staying silent when several people booed an American soldier. Santorum said he had not heard the booing but condemned the audience members who did it.

What Hill remembers most was that a presidential candidate defined his marriage and military service in terms of sex. He holds that up against the times he hid Snyder’s photograph because Army buddies were coming over to play video games, introduced his husband as his roommate or brother, and the legal vows they exchanged at the grave of Air Force Sgt. Leonard Matlovich, who was discharged in 1975 after becoming the first gay service member to challenge the U.S. military’s ban on gay troops.

Snyder and Hill last month joined other same-sex military couples in suing the government for the same benefits as straight military couples, which the Pentagon denies them on grounds that federal law defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

“This is not about sex,” Hill said. “A special privilege is not hiding pictures in my house or God forbid, taking mortar fire again and not knowing if Josh will be recognized. I’m fighting every day to protect everyone’s rights as human beings, and it seems counterintuitive for me to be fighting for those rights and not have them.”

Chris Armstrong made the announcement last week in a video on YouTube.

Andrew Shirvell, former Michigan assistant attorney general, had a blog that criticized Armstrong. Shirvell was fired last year being accused of harassing Armstrong and is being sued in federal court in Detroit. In response, he’s sued Armstrong’s lawyer.

Shirvell is a 2002 University of Michigan graduate. He said in a statement on Thursday that the video that describes his actions as “bullying” is defamatory.

The video was posted as part events marking the 40th anniversary of the Spectrum Center, the Ann Arbor school’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender support center.

A lawyer for John Becker of Truth Wins Out warned the husband of GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann that legal action would follow if the clinic owner refers the matter to debt collectors.

During five sessions this summer, Becker posed as a patient grappling with same-sex attractions. Becker’s video shows him and a counselor discussing ways to overcome homosexual urges; Bachmann denies his clinic offers therapy to “cure” gays.

Becker had booked future sessions, which he says he punctually canceled.

Marcus Bachmann confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that he called Becker to press him for payment of no-show fees.