(AP) | 02/27/2007 04:10 PM

By RACHEL ZOLL AP Religion Writer

The first openly gay Episcopal bishop, whose consecration has brought the world’s Anglicans to the brink of schism, said Tuesday that the Episcopal Church should not give in to demands that it roll back its acceptance of gays.

New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson said in a statement that Episcopalians should set aside the Anglican Communion’s request for now ”and get on with the work of the Gospel” even at the risk of losing their place in the Anglican fellowship.

”Doesn’t Jesus challenge the greater whole to sacrifice itself for those on the margins?” Robinson said. ”Now is the time for courage, not fear.”

It was Robinson’s first public statement on an ultimatum that Anglican leaders issued last week during a meeting in Tanzania. They gave the U.S. denomination until Sept. 30 to unequivocally pledge not to consecrate another gay bishop or authorize official prayers for same-sex couples. If it doesn’t, the church risks a much-reduced role in the Anglican family of churches that trace their roots back to the Church of England.

The Episcopal Church is the U.S. wing of world Anglicanism.

Robinson’s comments were a direct criticism of Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who has been regarded as a liberal leader but left the Tanzania meeting saying the denomination should make concessions ”for a season” until relationships with fellow Anglicans can be healed.

Jefferts Schori personally supports ordaining gays and voted to confirm Robinson in 2003; but, noting that the season of Lent was beginning, she said Anglican leaders _ called primates _ were asking for a ”fast” by both sides in the debate. Conservative Anglican leaders have been asked to stop crossing into Episcopal territory to take control of breakaway conservative parishes.

Robinson said gays and lesbians were being asked to sacrifice much more than others. He compared Anglicans who oppose full acceptance of gays and lesbians to the Pharisees, and said Jesus would never have been asked to halt his ministries out of sensitivity to them.

”How will we explain this ‘forbearance’ to all those gay and lesbian Christians who have come to the Episcopal Church because, for the first time ever, they have believed that there is a place for them at God’s table, not simply beneath it, hoping for fallen scraps?” he wrote.

Meeting these latest demands of the primates may not even avert a communion-wide split, so Episcopalians should decide in their own time whether accepting gays and lesbians is the right thing to do, he said.

”Does anyone believe that our full compliance with the primates’ demands, our complete denunciation of our gay and lesbian members or my removal as bishop would make all this go away?” he asked. ”For the first time in its history and at the hands of the larger communion, the Episcopal Church may be experiencing a little taste of the irrational discrimination and exclusion that is an everyday experience of its gay and lesbian members.”

In a companion statement to gay and lesbian Christians, Robinson said they should not be ”intimidated into doubting our own vision of God’s will for the church.”

Canon Bob Williams, a spokesman for Jefferts Schori, said she ”is unwavering” in her commitment to a church open to all. ”Her call to Lenten reflection provides space for individuals and for the church corporately to contemplate next steps forward,” he said.

____

On the Net:

The Episcopal Church: http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AP) | 02/27/2007 10:49 PM

An Air Force officer accused of drugging and kidnapping servicemen he met in bars was found guilty Tuesday of raping four men and attempting to rape two others.

A nine-member military jury deliberated for about seven hours in Capt. Devery L. Taylor’s court-martial. Taylor gave no reaction upon hearing the verdict.

Taylor, the former chief of patient administration at Eglin Regional Hospital, faces a maximum of life in prison. Sentencing was to begin Wednesday.

”I am pleased. I am emotional, but I am very, very pleased,” said Maj. Kathleen Reder, a military prosecutor.

”These men can sit up a little straighter now; I am proud of them,” she said of the six victims who testified.

Martin Regan, Taylor’s civilian defense attorney, declined to comment before sentencing.

Military prosecutors described Taylor, 38, as a serial rapist who met men in bars, spiked their drinks with the ”date-rape” drug gamma-hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, and kidnapped them.

Taylor was charged with two counts of attempted sodomy, four counts of forcible sodomy, two counts of kidnapping and one count of unlawful entry.

Taylor testified that he had consensual sex with five of the men and that the sixth, who is openly gay, raped him. Regan said the men lied to protect their military careers.

Four of the men were in the military when they met Taylor, and a fifth wanted to join the Navy and feared being identified as gay, Regan said.

Regan said Taylor’s only crime was being gay in the military and violating the ”don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which bans people who are openly gay from serving in the armed forces.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

HONOLULU (AP) | 02/28/2007 07:22 AM

Hawaii lawmakers effectively killed a proposal to create civil unions for gay couples by declining to vote on the legislation.

More than 100 people packed the House Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, many waving pink signs reading, ”Civil Unions. Equal protection, justice for all.” At least 400 people submitted extensive written or oral testimony.

After five hours of testimony, though, the committee declined to vote. Representatives offered little explanation to the public, but it was a sign that the bill lacked enough support to become law.

Civil unions had been suggested as a way for the state to sidestep a controversy over gay marriage, but they proved to be nearly as contentious.

Opponents argued that civil unions were being used as a step toward legalizing gay marriage. Proponents said they want the legal guarantees granted to married couples, such as tax breaks, adoption rights and health benefits.

”This is essentially a re-examination of the same-sex marriage issue except with a different title,” said Kelly Rosati, a spokeswoman for the Hawaii Catholic Church and executive director for the Hawaii Family Forum.

Gay rights advocates said the law was needed in order to give same-sex couples equal rights as heterosexuals.

”For me, it’s very clear cut that it’s gender discrimination,” said Scott Orton, who is gay. ”I would like to take on a partner in the future and have the same rights as a married person.”

Hawaii nearly legalized gay marriages more than a decade ago before stiff public opposition came from family advocacy groups, the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church.

A decision by the Hawaii Supreme Court would have allowed same-sex marriages, but a 1998 constitutional amendment and a law defined marriage as between two people of opposite sexes.

Vermont, Connecticut and New Jersey already have civil union laws. Massachusetts is the only state to allow same-sex marriages.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today’s Headlines
Hawaii Civil Unions Plan Goes Nowhere
Air Force Officer Found Guilty of Rape
Gay Bishop Says No to Ultimatum

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AP) | 02/26/2007 11:59 PM

By MELISSA NELSON Associated Press Writer

An Air Force officer accused of raping four men and attempting to rape two others is only guilty of being gay in the military, a defense attorney told a court-martial jury during closing arguments Monday.

Capt. Devery L. Taylor, 38, violated the military’s ”don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which bans people who are openly gay and lesbian from serving in the armed forces, said his private defense attorney, Martin Regan.

”My client is an admitted homosexual involved in consensual homosexual relationships and let’s let the military deal with it in the right forum, not in a court-martial,” Regan said.

Four of the men had consensual sex with Taylor and lied to protect their military careers, while a fifth wanted to join the Navy and feared being identified as gay, Regan said.

A sixth man, who is openly gay, forced Taylor to have sex with him, but later told investigators he was raped because he feared being charged with rape himself, Regan said.

Military prosecutors described Taylor as a serial rapist who met men in bars, spiked their drinks with the ”date-rape drug” gamma-hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, and kidnapped them.

”Being known to the world as a male rape victim is not fun. It is hard for them to sit up straight. If they are concerned about their military careers, why say anything?” said Military prosecutor Maj. Kathleen Reder.

Taylor, a medic and the former chief of patient administration at Eglin Regional Hospital, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted. He is charged with two counts of attempted sodomy, four counts of forcible sodomy, three counts of kidnapping and one count of unlawful entry.

The military jury was scheduled to begin deliberations Tuesday.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

BOSTON (AP) | 02/26/2007 10:23 PM

By DAVID WEBER Associated Press Writer

A group lobbying for a constitutional ban on gay marriage concedes that its chances are slim with Democrats controlling Congress. So now it’s setting its sights on state legislatures.

The Washington-based Alliance for Marriage wants to build a nationwide network of state lawmakers who would support a constitutional amendment, the group’s leaders said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press.

”There is no question that the shift in the balance of power in Washington has, for the time-being, made it difficult to reintroduce the federal amendment in Congress,” said Matt Daniels, the group’s founder and president.

But voters in several states approved ballot questions opposing gay marriage. And ultimately, three-fourths of state legislatures would have to approve an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

”We believe the day is coming when the Marriage Protection Amendment will be sent to the states,” said Bob Adams, vice president of the alliance. ”The time to organize for that is now, not 10 years down the road.”

Arline Isaacson, a leader of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, acknowledged the anti-gay marriage lobby has had success in state legislatures, 45 of which already have passed laws or constitutional amendments prohibiting gay marriage.

The anti-gay marriage groups ”are extremely well-funded and very well-organized,” Isaacson said. ”I don’t doubt they will happily pour those resources into preliminary organization of the states.”

Massachusetts is the only state in the country that allows same-sex marriage. Connecticut, New Jersey and Vermont allow civil unions for same-sex couples.

But Massachusetts lawmakers voted at the end of the last session to allow further consideration on a proposed constitutional amendment against gay marriage.

”We are fighting with everything we’ve got to preserve our marriage rights,” Isaacson said, although she acknowledged that gay marriage supporters do not currently have enough votes to prevent the amendment’s passage.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today’s Headlines
Gay Marriage Opponents to Look to States
Jury to Deliberate Air Force Rape Trial

QUEENSLAND, Australia, Feb. 25 (UPI)

Captive female koalas in Australia have been observed engaging in homosexual acts, with some sessions involving as many as five koalas. The Independent on Sunday reported that despite the presence of males, the female koalas apparently preferred each other. Researchers said the behavior has only been observed in captive koalas; wild koalas remain heterosexual. Scientists who were monitoring the koalas with digital cameras said there were three times as many homosexual encounters than heterosexual ones. Scientists from the University of Queensland studied 130 koalas in captivity. They will publish their results in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International  

SANTA ROSA, Calif., Feb. 25 (UPI)

Testimony has concluded in the California discrimination lawsuit against a high school student who repeatedly said that’s so gay to classmates. Testimony in the harassment and religious discrimination case ended Wednesday. A verdict is not expected for several months, the Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press Democrat reported. Judge Elaine Rushing will have up to 90 days to issue her ruling after she hears opposing attorneys’ closing statements in either March or April. Kathy and Elden Rice filed the suit after their daughter, Rebekah, was disciplined for using the term that’s so gay to her classmates nearly three years ago at a school in Santa Rosa. The suit names the Santa Rosa school district, Maria Carrillo High School Principal Mark Klick, Assistant Principal Kass Mason and teacher Claudine Gans-Rugebregt as co-defendants. The family maintains that their daughter was singled out for using the phrase due to her Mormon beliefs and has asked for unspecified financial compensation.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International 

NEW YORK (AP) | 02/24/2007 01:10 PM

By DAVID CRARY AP National Writer

Anti-gay bias has flared up in Hollywood and pro basketball recently, and soon the topic will be thrust dramatically into a new forum _ a reshaped Congress likely to pass the first major federal gay-rights bills.

Wary conservative leaders, as well as gay-rights advocates, share a belief that at least two measures will win approval this year: a hate-crimes bill that would cover offenses motivated by anti-gay bias, and a measure that would outlaw workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Also on the table _ although with more doubtful prospects _ will be a measure to be introduced Wednesday seeking repeal of the ”don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that bans openly gay and lesbian Americans from serving in the military.

All three measures surfaced in previous sessions of Congress, at times winning significant bipartisan backing but always falling short of final passage. This year, with Democrats now in control and many Republicans likely to join in support, the hate-crimes and workplace bills are widely expected to prevail.

”With liberals in control, there’s a good possibility they’ll both pass,” said Matt Barber, a policy director with the conservative group Concerned Women for America. ”They’re both dangerous to freedom of conscience, to religious liberties, to free speech.”

If approved by Congress, the bills would head to the White House. Activists on both the left and right are unsure whether President Bush would sign or veto them.

For gay-rights leaders _ whose efforts to legalize same-sex marriage have been rebuffed by many states _ the congressional votes are keenly anticipated after years of lobbying.

”This is a major step in our struggle,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign. ”I know there’s a lot of despair on the other side.”

The workplace bill _ titled the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA _ is the subject of behind-the-scenes negotiations. The bill that emerges is expected to expand on earlier versions to cover not only sexual orientation but also gender identity, thus extending protections to transgender employees. Churches and small businesses would be exempt.

For many Americans, ENDA’s provisions would be familiar. More than 85 percent of the Fortune 500 companies include sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policies, as do 17 states and many local governments.

And publicly, there is increasingly little tolerance for overt anti-gay bias. The National Basketball Association swiftly repudiated retired all-star Tim Hardaway after he spoke this month of hating gays, while TV actor Isaiah Washington apologized and sought counseling after using a gay slur in reference to a fellow actor on ”Grey’s Anatomy.”

Advocacy groups also say there have been huge strides in regard to protections for transgender people _ with nine states, scores of major corporations and more than 70 colleges and universities now banning discrimination based on gender identity.

California’s ban, in effect since 2003, has not triggered a flood of litigation, but it has prompted employers to proactively improve their policies for dealing with transgender employees, said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

In past years, some congressional supporters of gay rights warned that ENDA’s prospects would be crippled by including protections for gender identity. This year may be different.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said the version he is helping draft will indeed cover transgender employees, while offering some allowances to employers so they can enforce dress codes and minimize controversies over bathroom use.

”With the proper amendments, I think we can get it,” said Frank, one of two openly gay members of Congress.

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, contended that gay-rights groups exaggerated the extent of anti-gay bias as part of a broader push to achieve their political goals.

”I’m sure there’s probably a case here and there,” Perkins said. ”But I’ve seen more discrimination of people of religious faith than I’ve seen of gay people in the work force.”

ENDA was first introduced in the 1994, and came within one vote of Senate passage in 1996, while the hate-crimes bill has passed in the House and Senate in separate years only to falter before final passage at the behest of GOP conservatives.

The hate-crimes measure would expand existing federal provisions to include acts of violence against gays and lesbians. Opponents contend it would be an ominous first step toward criminalizing criticism of homosexuality.

”It’s taking us to the point where anyone who opposes the sexual behavior of homosexuals will be silenced,” Perkins said.

According to the FBI, about 14 percent of the 7,163 hate crimes reported in 2005 targeted gays or lesbians _ a slightly lower percentage than the two prior years. Some activists, such as Riki Wilchins of the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition, say there has been an increase of workplace complaints filed by male employees, gay and straight, contending they were harassed by fellow male workers who perceived them as effeminate.

Assuming ENDA and the hate-crimes bill win approval, but not by veto-proof margins, Bush would face a politically sensitive decision of how to respond.

”Does he want to use one of his first vetoes to deny basic job protection to people?” asked Dave Noble, public policy director for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Mat Staver of the conservative legal group Liberty Counsel worried that Bush would not veto the bills, perhaps as a gesture of respect for Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Vice President Cheney.

However, Matt Barber of Concerned Women for America held out hope that Bush would block the measures. ”Hopefully,” Barber said, ”the president will show that the veto pen is mightier than the politically correct sword.”

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

BOSTON (AP) | 02/23/2007 03:46 PM

A federal judge on Friday threw out a lawsuit filed by parents who wanted to keep their young children from learning about gay marriage in school.

U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf said federal courts have decided in other cases that parents’ rights to exercise their religious beliefs are not violated when their children are exposed to contrary ideas in school.

Schools are ”entitled to teach anything that is reasonably related to the goals of preparing students to become engaged and productive citizens,” Wolf said in his ruling.

Tonia and David Parker of Lexington sued after their 5-year-old son brought home a book from kindergarten that depicted a gay family. Another Lexington couple joined the suit after a second-grade teacher read the class a fairy tale about two princes falling in love.

Both couples claimed Lexington school officials violated their parental rights to teach their own morals to their children. They said they wanted to be notified before gay couples were discussed so they could remove their children from classrooms.

Wolf dismissed both federal and state claims made in the lawsuit but said the parents could refile the lawsuit in state court.

Attorney Jeffrey Denner said the parents would file a federal appeal and refile the state-court claims.

David Parker said school administrators violated a state law requiring that parents get an opportunity to exempt their children from any curriculum that ”primarily involves human sexual education or human sexuality.”

But school attorney John Davis said the books did not focus on sex education, but merely depicted various families, including same-sex families.

The case attracted attention in part because Massachusetts is the only state that allows same-sex marriage.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) | 02/26/2007 08:51 AM

By JERRY HARKAVY Associated Press Writer

In their 14-year relationship, Patricia Spado and Olive Watson spent only five nights apart. They lived in New York, spent summers in Maine, and shared the more practical pieces of a life together _ a home, a joint bank account.

But in a time long before civil unions or gay marriage, Watson wanted to ensure that her partner would be taken care of when she was no longer there. So, at a small courthouse in coastal Maine, she adopted Spado.

Fifteen years later, the adoption is being challenged in courts in Connecticut and Maine as Olive Watson’s family parcels out the family fortune _ and contests their newfound heir.

The case, according to gay activists, is rare and offers an example of how far same-sex couples have gone to attain financial and inheritance protections that married couples take for granted.

”It shows what people are driven to when they don’t have access to marriage and the conventional way of forming a family,” said Mary Bonauto, an attorney with Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, the Boston-based group that won the legal battle that introduced gay marriage to Massachusetts.

At stake is a share in multimillion-dollar trust funds that Olive Watson’s father, Thomas Watson, who built International Business Machines into today’s IBM computer colossus, set up for his grandchildren. He died in 1993, unaware of the adoption. His wife, who died in 2004, apparently learned of it from her daughter.

With the deaths of both parents, the trusts’ beneficiaries _ grandchildren, at least 18 of them _ became eligible for cash payouts at age 35. But when Spado’s lawyer notified the trusts that she was a potential beneficiary as a legal granddaughter, the family challenged the claim in probate court in Greenwich, Conn., where Thomas Watson lived at the time of his death.

Spado and Olive Watson aren’t together anymore. They separated in 1992, and while Spado received about $500,000 from Watson, there is nothing in court records to show any arrangement beyond that.

A judge ruled that Thomas Watson did not recognize Spado as his granddaughter and did not intend for her to benefit from the trusts. ”It is reasonable to conclude that Watson intended to benefit only those grandchildren who had a typical parent/child relationship with his children,” Judge David Hopper wrote.

The size of the estate has not been estimated in court documents, and principals in the case did not respond to requests for comment. Lawyers for Spado and Watson also did not respond to questions about the case.

Spado has appealed. In the meantime, the family trusts are trying to have her adoption annulled in Maine, where they would have to prove deception or fraud.

Briefs filed with the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, which heard an appeal on a technicality, indicate that the judge who approved the adoption never knew that Olive Watson and Spado had a sexual relationship.

New York, where the couple had been living at the time, barred the adoption of a homosexual partner, but Maine had no such restriction. Nor did it have a provision like Connecticut’s that prohibits a person from adopting someone older _ Spado, 44 at the time, was a year older than her adoptive mother.

However, the Maine adoption law required that the adoptee had to be living in the state, and the two sides are at odds on whether spending part of each summer vacation on Maine’s North Haven island met that requirement.

The couple met in 1978 while Spado was working in Los Angeles. Watson rented a residence in California in order to be with her lover, who later abandoned her career and moved with Watson to New York.

They held joint bank accounts, owned real estate together and exchanged durable powers of attorney and health care proxies. Watson amended her will to name Spado as sole beneficiary.

After their breakup, Watson paid Spado the $500,000 settlement in exchange for relinquishing her claim to certain real estate. But the settlement was apparently not intended to terminate Spade’s right to her inheritance as a granddaughter.

According to a court brief filed by Spado in Maine, a letter signed by Watson shortly after the breakup confirms ”our agreement that I have not and that I shall at no time initiate any action to revoke or annul my adoption of you.”

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today’s Headlines
Family Challenges Lesbian Adoption
Parent Suit on Gay Marriage Talk Tossed
Gay Rights Advances Likely in Congress
Testimony ends in ‘that’s so gay’ trial
Lesbianism common in captive koalas

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) | 02/22/2007 12:17 PM

The threat of churches departing from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has become so serious that leaders have issued a letter asking them to stay.

The Presbyterian Church, like other mainline Protestant groups, has been struggling for years to reconcile members who disagree over how to interpret Scripture.

At least eight churches have left since a Presbyterian General Assembly last summer, which voted to give leeway to install partnered gay clergy and allowed church officials to propose experimental phrasings for the divine Trinity in place of ”Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”

The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, a denominational leader, wrote in the Jan. 29 letter that ”there’s no question that the vast majority of Presbyterian churches are going to stay,” but ”I think any exodus is too many.”

”Any church’s departure is difficult and painful for the congregations involved and the wider church,” Kirkpatrick wrote. ”Fractures within the body of Christ diminish our witness of God’s grace and mercy to the world _ unfortunate in these already divisive times. And, the (denomination) will miss the gifts and perspectives of these brothers and sisters in Christ.”

The New Wineskins Association of Churches, which represents Presbyterian traditionalists, is developing a breakaway strategy. Departing congregations could join the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a theologically conservative group independent of the Louisville-based denomination.

”In over three hundred years of American Presbyterian history, we have never agreed 100 percent on any issue of the day. But, in the end, we are better together in Christ’s unity,” Kirkpatrick wrote.

___

http://www.pcusa.org

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) | 02/23/2007 09:47 AM

Rhode Island’s attorney general said his opinion this week advising his state to recognize same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts had nothing to do with his sister’s wedding to her partner there days earlier.

Attorney General Patrick Lynch said the advisory opinion, which is not binding, was issued in response to a question from a state agency and was based on legal research.

”No disrespect to my sister, who I love very much, but it has zero impact on it,” he said.

In Wednesday’s opinion, Lynch said there was no strong reason for Rhode Island to deny recognition to gay marriages performed in Massachusetts because Rhode Island does not have a law banning such unions.

The opinion came a week after Lynch attended the Feb. 15 wedding of his sister Margaret Lynch-Gadaleta and her partner of 18 years in Attleboro, Mass.

Lynch-Gadaleta, the Pawtucket city solicitor, said she did not believe her brother was influenced by her partnership.

The opinion answered a question from the Board of Governors for Higher Education over a request by gay employees in the state college system to have their files changed to reflect their marriages in Massachusetts.

Steve Maurano, a spokesman for the Board of Governors, which oversees higher education in Rhode Island, said the board intends to follow Lynch’s advice.

Massachusetts is the only state where gay marriage is legal. New Jersey, Vermont and Connecticut offer civil unions, which offer the protections and benefits of marriage without the title, and California offers domestic partnerships with similar benefits.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.