Heroes & Villains
R.U.1.2? Queer Community Dinner Raises Dough
NGLTF’s Matt Foreman Warns of Anti-Gay Threats

Bv EUAN BEAR

e heroes were the 250-plus diners at the
I Wyndham Hotel who emptied their
checkbooks for silent auction items rang-
ing from a Burton snowboard to a half-page ad
in the Burlington Free Press, from hand knit or
woven wearables to massage and chiropractic
sessions, from artwork to concert tickets to
ovemights at B&Bs. R.U.l.2'? Queer

0 Community Center Board Chairwoman Cathy

Resmer said the Center realized nearly $10,000
from the auction, the dinner, sales of table cen-
terpieces, and pledges and donations for the
“fumiture fund.” _

There were more heroes in the cele-
bration of community volunteers. R.U.l.2? co-
founder Don Eggert was awarded special
recognition for his five years of service to the
Center — an unlooked-for acknowledgment that
clearly choked him up, until a sympathetic
diner offered up his full water glass. Center
Executive Director Christopher Kaufman called
Eggert the one “without whom nothing.”

And the Volunteer of the Year award
went to Dick Haas of the AIDS Project of
Southern Vermont. Haas, whose dedication and
contributions were outlined by Project program
director Glen Johnson, has been volunteering
five to six hours a week for 11 years in the

unglamorous job of maintaining donor databas- .

es with thousands of contacts. “I went to a
postal service bulk mailing training,” Johnson
said, “and they all knew Dick’s work because
our database was so clean.”

Haas thanked the person he said is his
best friend, who had stood behind him for 33
years: his partner Howard Graff.

There were more villains than heroes
in the outline of national challenges by keynote
speaker Matt Foreman, executive director of
the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, with
Vermont a lone bright spot in a litany of
oncoming trouble for lgbt communities nation-
wide.

He was, he said, “honored and privi-
leged to be in the presence of so many people
who fought and worked so hard for so many
years,  who four years ago this month,
achieved what was deemed impossible —— civil
unions — full equality for our families under
state law.

“In fact, to this day, you remain the
only lgbt community in the nation that has
stood up to, fought against, and defeated a
pitched assault by the right to push back and

overturn a court decision declaring that failure
to recognize our relationships violates basic
constitutional principles.

“For these reasons," he continued, “I
feel a little embarrassed to be talking about the
threats our national community is facing, the
battles_ in which we are engaged, or about the
viciousness and tactics of our opponents. You
know all of this, you’ve lived through it, and
every lgbt person in America owes an extraor-
dinary debt you, our_Vermont heroes, for perse-
vering against extraordinary odds.”

Foreman went on to name those
vicious oppenents, the villains of the piece,
who, he said, were well-funded and ruthless:
Focus on the Family, Traditional Values ‘
Coalition, and Concerned Women for America.

‘The dinner speech marked Foreman’s
first time in Burlington, he said in an interview
before the evening’s event. What makes
Verrnont’s experience special, he said, was that
the community “came out the other side intact.”
In other parts of the country,'he explained,
where anti-gay ballot measures have been
fought — including state DOMA legislation —
the community has emerged “bitterly divided
and hopelessly worn out. Here, the community
seems intact and you’re moving forward,” as
shown by the growth of R.U.l.2?, among other
indicators. If even 25 percent of the struggles
elsewhere do as well as Vermont, he added, that
would be a huge step forward. ’

In the interview and later in his
speech, Foreman pointed to the “lesson of

. Vermont” for other communities: “There is no

substitute for face-to-face community work.”
He cited the years of Vermont Freedom to
Marry Task Force presence at county fairs, and
speakers taking heat from hostile gatherings at
mainstream church, club, and association
meetings.
“The big challenge is the recognition

that all politics is local. The money in our com-

 munity all flows toward Washington DC,” he

said in the interview, “despite 30 years of zero
action.” Foreman charged that the big lgbt
organization donors are “obsessed with ‘glam-
our’ and seeing big-name politicians at their
fund-raising dinners,” citing “Hilary” and
“Chuck” (New York Senators Hilary Rodham
Clinton and Charles Shumer) as examples. In
the meantime, neither Senator has expressed
more than token opposition to the federal mar-
riage amendment that would, if ratified, embed
discrimination against same-sex couples in the
U.S. Constitution. Foreman also put California
Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein in
the same category for failing to say they would

oppose any anti-gay marriage amendment. “If
our so-called friends can’t stand with us 
The marriage amendment, he added,
is being effectively used as a wedge to defeat
state and local politicians who are either mod-
erate or pro-lgbt issues, especially in African
American churches. “All they have to do is
wedge or depress 2 percent of the African
American vote and a Democrat can’t win.
That’s how closely we’re divided in this
country.” ,
But, Foreman said in the interview,
thelploy won’t work, because in mainstream
America, the top issues are healthcare, jobs,
war, and terrorism. “This [marriage amend-
ment] tactic is evil — it’s Willie Horton all over

. again, only this time we’re Willie Horton.”

Foreman has been with partner .

0, Francisco DeLeon for 14 years, and the two are

“floating between New York,” where Foreman

“Every lgbt person in America owes 
an extraordinary debt to you,..,

our Vermont heroes, for persevering .
against extraordinary odds.”

Matt Foreman

was director of the Empire State Pride Agenda,
“and Washington,” where many of his duties as
director ofthe NGLTF take him. His family
“moved around a lot” but he went to college in
West Virginia. He won a scholarship to NYU
for law school, but interrupted his studies to go
back to West Virginia to come out.
He has a long history of activism,
“being a professional homosexual” as he calls
it. Foreman was involved with Dignity and
Heritage of Pride, and was the executive direc-
tor of New York’s Gay and Lesbian
Antiviolence Project, before moving on to
direct ESPA.
Asked to gaze into the future,

Foreman refused to predict the outcome of the
national elections this fall. But, he said, at least
three states would likely have constitutional
amendments prohibiting same-sex marriage. He
indicated that some community members aren’t
taking the state amendments seriously enough:
there will be no avenue other than a repeal
amendment to challenge a state anti-gay mar-

' about causes for hopez‘*‘7l‘liere’s“i‘nci’ékli15lie:

    
    
   
  

riage constitutional amendment, unlike state
DOMA laws, which can be challenged in court§, ~
“Whoever’s in the White House, we :
have to advance a new agenda. Congress will f I
be controlled by Republicans — or rather by 
anti-gay forces,” Foreman declared. He stressed‘?
the importance of building alliances and rela-  ‘
tionships with other groups. “Other issues are ,7,
gay issues. Without allies we won’t win on B"
‘Our’ issues.” And there are “more progressive": :-
groups coming together than ever before.” 0
Following Foreman, Burlington
Mayor and gubernatorial candidate Peter
Clavelle said a few words, having arrived late” 
from a campaign event in Bennington. “I’m  *-
glad to have gotten here to hear Matt Foremanfi '
expose those bigotsfor what they are,” he saidffi
referring to equal marriage opponents. 
Clavelle declared that he was proud M L
to be in a state that is “striving to get equal ,'
rights” for its citizens and acknowledged that -:
civil unions fall short of full equality, but did V
not take the opportunity to announce his sup- »
port for full gay marriage. 
" Lest he be considered a voice of v‘
doom and gloom, two days after the dinner
Foreman sent an email response to a question

  
 
 
  

in the amount of grassroots organizing and
energy — we haven’t seen anything like this *1

since the peak of the AIDS crisis in the late 80s 1
and early 905. Even better, there’s a genuine
wellspring of support from non-LGBT people. _:
' There’s also a lot of hope behind the

fact that the right has launched anti-marriage ‘
legislative initiatives in 29 states this year, and I
II have gone nowhere — including Maine
(we’ve lost in four states and the balance are ‘ ,
pending). I think it’s clear that in the next 2-3
years, we will have at least five states that rec-
ognize same sex marriages, probably as a result
of litigation brought by couples married in 0
Canada or Massachusetts.

“But more than anything is the fact
that right is on our side. Sooner or later, we
will prevail. We all just have to keep fighting
with the [same] tenacity [as] our opponents.”V