28 | Out in the Mountains |November 2000 _~..... 3 Moumain Pride Media is our... in -the Moan-rains, and in -the valleys and coming -to see you! The next stop on the 2000 Green Mountain Tour C VVINDSOR COUNTY ) Sunday, November 5 Hosted by Fred Pond 1 - 3 PM WORKSHOP ”Writing for print media” . Hone your press release and letter-to-the-editor writing skills. This is a hands-on workshop designed to help you and your organization get what you have to say in print. 4 - 6 PM RECEPTION Meet members of the Mountain Pride Media Board and the staff of Out in the Mountains and mountainpride— media.org. We'll be there to chat with you about the ser- vices we offer, ask for your input, and answer your ‘ques- tions. We need volunteers in each area to make food, help us with local con- tacts - and invitations, assist with set up and break down. rest of the tour. Please Contact us if you can help in your area. A Please Contact us at: GREEN M0Ul‘lTA1N e.ditor@rnountainpridernedia.or .T,.:23::;i::’:m. orsoz-434648 Bemmgton ' to RSVP, volunteer, or Gmndlsle get more information » about the tour Royalton St. Johnsbury The Green Mountain Tour is made possible by a generous grant from the Green Mountain Fund for Popular Struggle We're already planning the AOL continued from page one losophy isn’t in line with Janet Folger and James Kennedy,” said Besen, “because if it is, there can be no doubt how they feel about our community.” “In no way was the gift intend- ed to send a message of intoler- ance,” Jean Case said in a state- ment released the day after the news of her gift broke on Gay.com. “Steve and I strongly oppose discrimination in any form.” . “I can assure you, their [Coral Ridge’s] actions have cost our organization hundreds of thou- sands of dollars to correct the record,” wrote HRC director Elizabeth Birch in a letter to Steve Case. “The views of Mr. Kennedy are not in synch with any of the corporate values we have seen at AOL,” she said, and asked Case to reconsider the donation. The AOL chief has not com- mented publicly on the gift and spokespersons for the company are directing questions to the Case Foundation, the $135 million dol- lar philanthropy headed by Jean Chase. The donation of more than $8 _ million to this “anti-gay organiza- tion disguised as a ministry,” said Besen, “is not a gift toward educa- tion, but one toward indoctrina- tion.” The Cases he _ said,» are “funding an assembly line of big- ots.” _ “Time to leave AOL and hook up with one of the local services,” said AOL subscriber Herb Franzen of Essex Junction. “It’s just the incentive I needed.”V UVM continued from page one wouldn’t have had to go through what I did to get a green card; we would have had access to the immigration policies that married couples have.” Beth Robinson, attorney for the plaintiffs in the Baker case that prompted the civil union law, said UVM was correct in seeing a problem, but “absolutely wrong” in their solution. “Same-sex cou- ples don’t want a double stan- dard,” she said, “But domestic partnership benefits are about equal pay for equal work, whether you’re married, in a civil union, living with someone of the same sex of someone of the opposite sex, or living with your brother or sister.” Robinson believes the correct move would be to extend domes- tic partnership benefits more broadly. “It is unfortunate,” she said, “that UVM has decided to narrow the scope of health insur- ance availability at a time when workers everywhere certainly need greater access to it.” The university was one of the state’s first employers and one of the country’s first universities to offer same-sex couples benefits. Now those benefits are common- place in academia, said Elder. “This action will deplete the pool of people who will applyvhere,” he said. “Why would you go some- place that required a civil union- when other places offer domestic partnership benefits without it?” Professor Beth Mintz, UVM sociology department chair, was one of the employees whose grievance led to the 1993 imple- mentation of domestic partnership benefits. “This decision was made with minimal ‘consultation in gen- eral,” she said, “and none that I know of with people who were part of the original movement to acquire the benefits.” She said the administration’s conference with the Ad Hoc Benefits Committee of university employees was “like asking white people what’s good for people of color.” The issue, said Mintz, is not whether or not civil unions pro- vide the same benefits as domestic ‘ partnership, but that neither is equal to marriage. “Civil unions are still second class benefits,” she said. For example, she said, even with a civil union license, "any health benefits she would acquire for her partner are taxable, unlike those for married couples. Some UVM employees are concerned about the loss of priva- cy the new rules require. Elder said there are many people who will not be comfortable outing themselves to their town clerks to get licenses. “In some places, there’s a real risk to that,” he said. Additionally, Elder finds the new requirements insulting. “It puts the burden of responsibility back on gay and lesbian faculty to provethat our relationships are valid.” He says that those who are already a part of the program should at least have been grandfa- thered in. “This conveys to me very clearly,” he said “that our benefits on campus were always contingent——never granted fully“. At any point, I could lose my ben- efits just because of who I am.” Elder and Mintz and other UVM employees have met infor- mally to discuss how to deal with the change in policy. They have scheduled a meeting with mem- bers of the school’s administration to discuss the decision and the process through which it was made;V