Conservatives want to permanently ban DP benefits in Houston

Although Houston mayor Lee Brown said earlier in the week that he would not pursue a plan to offer domestic-partner benefits to gay city workers, conservatives plan a petition drive to push a ballot measure to ban the benefits permanently, the Houston Chronicle reports. The drive to put the measure on the November ballot is being led by the Houstonians for Family Values political action committee, which was formed this week by Dave Wilson, a conservative activist. Wilson, who said that homosexual behavior is a sin, said he anticipates that he will easily be able to collect the 20,000 signatures necessary for the ballot measure. Brown said Monday that he was withdrawing the domestic-partnership proposal to pursue a nondiscrimination measure instead. A similar measure was passed by the city council in 1985 but repealed in a ballot referendum the following year.