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lspeaking 1'ruth to Power

Some of you who’ve been in
Vermont awhile may remember
Terje Anderson, once upon a time
an editor of OITM, a community liai-
son to the Governor’s office, an ,
executive director of VT CARES,
and a Democratic Party activist. He
is now the executive director of the
National Association of People With
AIDS.

Terje made the news in a
recent edition of P02, firing off an
email castigating the-Human Rights
Campaign and the Aids Action
Council for kissing up to "absti-
nence only" Bush appointees to the
Presidential Advisory Council on
HIV and AIDS (PACHA). Among»
other stands the Council members
profess: names reporting and
mandatory testing, and opposition
to providing condoms or clean
needles.‘ .

Seems that a coalition of
AIDS groups issued a failing grade
to Mr. Bush's administration on
AIDS actions. After all, 59 percent
of people with HIV are still untreat-
ed, and the budget underfunds the
Ryan White CARE Act and the UN
Global Fund to Fight AIDS. Not only
did the HRC and AAC.try to substi-
tute something “less confrontation-
al,” attempt to.stall the report. and
finally remove their support from a
planned press conference and letter
to the president, but the day after
the press conference, they threw an
exclusive cocktail party for the Bush
appointees.

Andersen blasted the
organizations’ sabotage of the unit-
ed-front presentation of the press
conference and letter and their
delaying tactics: “Being frozen in
inaction when the administration is
pursuing deadly AIDS policies is not
‘an appropriate strategy," Terje

wrote. “My T cells continue to fall
and I simply don’t have time for
playing games with the lives of my
friends and myself."

HRC officials said they
preferred a softer approach that
would not close off lines of commu-
nication and shut down “relation-
ships that we have built up with
congressional Republicans.”

Tiptoeing around people
who would just as soon walk all
over us somehow doesn’t seem like
an effective approach. And there's
Terje, speaking truth to power within
the “community” and beyond it.

Healthy Workplace?

The Vermont Psychological
Association wants to promote “psy-
chologically healthy workplaces," so
it is giving an award to employers
whose workplaces qualify. The crite-
ria include “employee involvement,
family support, employee growth
and development, and health and
safety." And yes, support for diversi-
ty is among the sub-criteria.

So, Charlie, tell the folks
what the award-winning businesses
get: “featured in the media, promot-
ed in company internal and/or exter-
nal communications vehicles, hon-
ored at special awards events, rec-
ognized by community leaders."
Wow! Surely, psychological health is
its own reward.

The cover letter accompa-
nying the award brochure was
signed by Jan Trepanier, executive
director of the Vermont
Psychological Association.

A trepanier would be a
person (one hopes medically quali-
fied) who drills holes in the skull, a
procedure that in the Middle Ages
was considered a cure for physical
and mental illness that gained new
disciples in the 1960s as a-means
of achieving enlightenment.

undermining Marriage
There was an interesting piece in
the May issue of Atlantic Monthly,

an essay on how conservatives
working to prevent the legalization
of same-gender marriage are
undermining their own stated goal
of “protecting” marriage. The argu-
ment goes something like this: you
can‘t force gays and lesbians back
into the closet and you can't stem
the tide of increasing acceptance of
gays and lesbians; gays and les-
bians, by being out singly and in
couples, have legitimized and made
'‘cool” the concept of unmarried
partnership, making that option
more attractive to heterosexuals
than the bonds of wedlock.

“Homosexua|s," writes
author Jonathan Rauch, “are plead-
ing to move beyond cohabitation.
And who is telling us to just shack
up instead? Self-styled friends of
matrimony."

The conclusion? If conser-
vatives really want to defend mar-
riage, they should embrace the
extension of real marriage (and not
just “marriage-light" or “ABM — any-
thing but marriage") to gay and les-
bian couples.

Where The Gays and
Lesbians Are _
According to an analysis of census
data, the ten most popular cities for
gay male couples to live are San
Francisco; Miami/Ft. Lauderdale;
Santa Fe, N.M.; Atlanta; San Diego;
Orlando, Fla.; Los Angeles; Seattle;
Austin, Texas; and Portland, Maine.

Lesbians prefer Santa Fe,
N.M.; Burlington, Vt.; Portland,
Maine; Springfield, Mass.; San
Francisco/Oakland; Corvallis, Ore.;
Madison, Wis.; Albuquerque, N.M.;
Eugene, Ore.; and Iowa City, Iowa.

The theory is that lesbians
prefer smaller urban areas because
they are more likely to have children
and housing is likely to be less
expensive and more available there.

So, let's hear it from the
lesbians: We’re number two, we’re
number twoll

Tell Me 'lwice

Apparently the Barre-Montpelier
Times—Argus didn't think running an
op-ed piece bashing Bill Lippert for
his "gay agenda" once wasn’t
enough. Just in case anyone didn't
get it the first time in their weekend
edition, they ran the piece by Barre
resident David J. Tolassi again on
the following Monday (April 22).

Using the tactic of taking
comments out of context, Tolassi
compiled a list of gay “agenda”
items he says Bill Lippert is appro-
priating his tax dollars to support.
When questioned by

Lippert and by Virginia Renfrew, the
powers that be at the Times—Argus
insisted that they ran it again
because in some copies of the origi-
nal printing, there was an unfortu-
nate ink splotch in the middle of the
article. Perhaps there was a little
gay genie in that machine over the
weekend.

Fem. of the Year

One of my favorite moderately
butch gay guys sent an incredulous
email in May, announcing that he
had been nominated for “Fem. of
the Year“ at Middlebury College,
where he is a staff member. Yes,
the spelling and the punctuation are
important.

It turned out that the
award was not about a propensity
to wear dresses and swing a mean
purse, but about advancing the
cause of feminism. Ahh! The light
dawns.

The Feminist of the Year
Award Ceremony is sponsored by
the Women's and Gender Studies
Program and Chellis House.
Previously called “Women of the
Year," the name was changed in
order to include guys like my friend
Jim: “any person, male or female,
who has made outstanding contri-
butions to the status of women and
/or issues of gender equity in the
Middlebury College community dur-
ing the past year."

_ The winners: students

Nahal Batmanghelidj and Kristen
Gray; staff members Sharon Van
Wright and Yvette Feig; and faculty
Amy Elman. Too bad, Jim, better
luck next year.

Un-‘Dean’-served Praise?
Does it bother anyone else that the

politician who did least to advance .

the cause of civil unions without
actively opposing them is now being
feted and awarded by GLBTQ
groups all over the United States for
his “courageous” action, his “leader-
ship," his “pro-civil rights" stand?
This is the governor whose total
public utterances consisted of “No
comment; let the Court decide.” The
governor who so desired not to be
associated with the bill becoming
law that he signed the bill “in the
closet" — without photographers or
supporters in attendance, without
handing out souvenir pens or shak-
ing hands, unlike virtually every
other bill he has ever signed. This is
the governor who twisted arms to
keep the medical marijuana bill —
which would benefit people with
HIV, various cancers, MS. and other
debilitating diseases — from becom-
ing law.

Dean has been greeted
with standing ovations by GLBTQ
audiences and organizations in
California, Washington DC,
Rochester NY and elsewhere. In
September, he shares the honored
speakers bill with NPR (and WHYY)
interviewer Terry Gross at the
National Lesbian and Gay
Journalists Association conference
in Philadelphia. I sure hope some-
one is asking him the hard ques-
tions when he says — as he did in
Rochester at the Empire State Pride
Agenda dinner on May 4 - "The
most important act in the LGBT
community is the act which is so dif-
ficult — to stand up and say, I am
who I am and I demand to be
accepted for who I am." V