BY EUAN BEAR
‘ ‘ e did everything backwards,”
laughs Robyn Maguire,

recounting how she came to
Vermont just three months ago. “First we
bought our house, and then we looked for
work.” The “we” is Robyn and her partner
Naomi Freedner, who has been winding things
up in Massachusetts before finally reuniting

their lives in Winooski.

And fortunately, Maguire didn’t
have to look very far for work, finding the
timing just right for her to take on leadership
of a re-activated campaign for marriage equal-
ity with the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task
Force. She is also working part time for the
Vermont Council on Domestic Violence.
Those two areas mesh well with her back-

ground: she’s been working with the

Massachusetts Freedom to Marry Coalition as
its director of field development and training
since before the Goodrich decision, and prior
to that, spent two years at Elizabeth Stone

House, a women’s shelter.

Her accent doesn’t show the years
she spent growing up in Pasadena, Texas,
whose claim to fame is “Gillie’s,” the bar 1
where Urban Cowboy was filmed. Maybe
that’s because her parents moved to Texas
from Worcester, MA for work. After graduat-

ing from the University of Texas in Houston‘

with a degree in journalism and public rela-

tions, she made her way back to
Massachusetts and extended family.

When the Vermont legislature
passed its civil union law in 2000, “I wanted
to move here then!” And five years later she’s

here. Much of the work she did in

Massachusetts, she says, was based on learn-
ing about Verrnont’s campaign for marriage
and then to retain the compromise of civil
union. “I can’t imagine just how hard it was to
be breaking new ground, to be having a dia-

logue no one was used to having,” Robyn
adds, sitting in the OIT M office. ~

“But now it’s five years later. People
know our faces. They can’t demonize our fam-
ilies in the way they did then. People know
what sarne-sex couples look like, that we care
about our communities,” she continues. “That
places us in a much better position.”

The fact that Vermonters have been
through the process of discussing civil unions
and facing and expressing their fears — no
matter how painful that process was — puts us

VFTF Fiel Director
Robyn Maguire
Elevates the Conversation

 

“ahead of the game.”

_ The job now, she says, is to “elevate
the conversation here in Vermont, to really
talkabout marriage.” She acknowledges a
diversity of opinion in the gay and lesbian
community about marriage. The real point is
not whether every couple would choose mar-
riage, but whether it’s available as a choice, in
the same way it is for straight couples.

“It’s not just about the word mar-
riage, but a whole sweeping range of benefits
and rights. It is only fair for us to be recog-

nized in all these matters.”

Robyn and Naomi might know
something about that. They just got married on
June 25 in Massachusetts, a “shotgun wed-
ding” of sorts. That is, they realized that once
they moved to Vermont, they would not be
able to marry within the United States — at
least until the Cote-Whitacre v Department of
Health lawsuit is resolved. That lawsuit
involves eight couples from outside - I;
Massachusetts who were either denied licenses
to marry there or whose marriages were ruled
invalid because of a 1913 law called the
“Reverse Evasion Act.” .

“When Naomi and I decided to 
move to Vermont and began thinking about a ‘
family, we realized we would have to get mar-
ried before we left. There were all these mile- §
stones in our relationship that were being ‘
compressed. I actually felt some resentment at
having to make that decision and squeeze that
into a three-month period. [Without the move,]
we would’ve waited another year and a half to
get married,” Robyn explains.

That’s a very personal example of
“discrimination dictating what we could and
could not do.” The government should get out
of the business of discrimination, she declares,
the passion she feels about the issue unmistak-
able in -her voice and body language.  “  4’

“At a speakers training for the
Freedom to Marry Coalition I met Ralph and
Paul, who had been together 48 years. Ralph’s
family didn’t quite ever accept them as a cou-
ple. Now that they were aging, Paul told me,
he wanted to share their story publicly because
without marriage, he wasn’t sure he would
have the right to claim Ralph’s body at a hos-
pital.” She shakes her head in amazement at
the many small and large and intimate ways
that marital status affects our lives.

“I am extremely committed to this
work. How marriage discrimination affects our
families is very harmful.

“I want us to win.” V

 

Hate-Free Zone

continued from page 1

second day, it was all peaceful and
quiet. People turned their backs on
Phelps.” Instead, they were visiting the
Plattsburgh for Peace booth. “We were
completely overwhelmed. We had to
empty two donation cans every twenty
minutes .” The group was offering wrist-
bands for Mayor’s Cup attendees to
show support for the cause, “and we
could barely keep up. But we went
through the information even faster."
Plattsburgh for Peace distrib-
uted a Hate Survival Guide, as well as
tip sheets for schools and businesses on
how to create hate-free zones, and
research materials for teachers. “We
had a lot of parents picking up the
sheets," MacLeod said, “and many
teachers from out of state who wanted
to bring the materials back home."
“That’s probably the most

Phelps’ group had planned to
stay at the Mayor’s Cup until seven or

donors,” MacLeod explained.

similar. “We didn’t have any large

have been formed,” Mcbeod said with
awe in her voice. “I personally saw

important part,” said Tierney McKee, an
educator from Fairport. “When parents
and teachers actually sit down and talk
with their kids - even if they themselves
aren't gay, aren’t comfortable with gay
people, whatever — they’re reinforcing
the message that hatred is not okay and
violence is never an option.”

Between donations and the
pledge-a-minute fund drive, Plattsburgh
for Peace raised over $8,000 to be split
among five charities. The Interfaith

1 Council’s Hospitality Network received

$1,778.50. The Interfaith Food Shelf
received $2,237.50. $2,072 is going to
the Matthew Shepard Foundation, and
another $1,425 to the Aids Council.
And the Southern Poverty Law Center
is getting $1,115. Donations came from
all across the country, funneled through
the Plattsburgh for Peace website.

eight in the evening. “They'd scheduled
a picket for 6 p.m., which is prime time
at the Mayor’s Cup,” MacLeod said.
“But then they switched to an afternoon
picket, and they were 20 minutes late
for that. They skipped their evening
picket entirely. But their comment to I
the media was that they were ‘bored
with the Champlain Valley.’ That tells
us everything we need to know.”

“I’m really proud of our
town,” said Erika McKinstry, a
Plattsburgh resident who attended the
Mayor’s Cup. “Maybe people’s minds
are opening up, and they’re ready to
accept people who are a little bit differ-
ent from themselves.”

Transforming Plattsburgh
into a hate-free zone took hundreds of
volunteers countless hours of effort.
Photocopying, folding literature, and
cutting stickers for distribution kept
volunteers busy for days.

The financial situation was

“Everything we needed we literally
built with tiny donations. More people
said, ‘I’m sorry I can’t do more,’ as
they pressed a crumpled $10 bill into
our hands. But our bucket was literally
filled entirely of tiny drops.

“We wanted to reach out to
everyone,” MacLeod explained.
“Rebecca Leonard called every church
in town, and attempted to meet with
every one of them face to face. The vast
majority agreed to meet with her, and
supported our message. At one church,
she did have to deal with a guy who
spent two hours trying to ‘save’ her, but
once they listened, they supported the
cause. Another church told her that they
agree with Phelps, just not how he's
spreading his message. But once you
have that conversation, you’re starting
the steps toward a hate free zone.”

The anti-hate effort bore fruit
in unexpected places. “We saw net-
works being formed that never would

people I’m used to seeing on the wrong
side of the sidewalk at Planned
Parenthood, that I’ve escorted patients
through, coming to keep Phelps’ poison
out of our town. And I sat down with
them, and thanked them for coming.”
The Plattsburgh Democratic and
Republican parties signed a joint letter

of endorsement of the group’s activities.

McLeod credited nearly
everyone‘s efforts but her own. “We
couldn’t have done it without the youth
in the area. They were the ones that
made the stickers and wristbands cool.
They were so eager to participate in

this. They actually did the activism and p 1

saw it work. That means when another
situation comes up, they’ll be likely to
try it again. And those are tomorrow's
voters.” V

Cynthia Potts is a freelance writer liv-
ing in Ellenburg Center, NY with her
partner and two feminists-in-training.

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