Out in the Mountains . February 1986 . page 12

The times of Dan White

by Euan Bear
(reprinted with permission from the
Vanguard Press, Nov. 3-10, 1985)

There it was, a quietly spoken item
last week on the seven o'clock national
news: Dan White, the convicted killer of
San Francisco's Mayor George Moscone
and city council member and gay activist
Harvey Milk, had committed suicide by
carbon monoxide poisoning.

Dan White was the ex—fireman,
ex-policeman who, after resigning his city
council seat, changed his mind, loaded his
service revolver, put extra ammunition in
his pocket along with his gun and
climbed through a side window of city
hall to avoid metal detectors. He went to
Moscone’s office to plead for
reappointment, and when it wasn’t
forthcoming, emptied his revolver into the
mayor's body. He then reloaded the
weapon, walked down the hall to Harvey
Milk’s office and shot him dead.

At the trial, Dan White’s lawyer
claimed that White's judgement was
impaired by the junk food he had been
eating - the "twinkie defense." White was
sentenced, and served less than five years
in prison for the crime of manslaughter.

My first reaction was a kind of angry
relief: "Far out, Dan White finally did
the right thing." It is hard enough living
as a gay person in a homophobic society
without having our deaths devalued along
with our lives. It was a moment when my
pain as a lesbian and the pain of gay
people all over the US at Harvey Milk’s
murder was somehow vindicated by the
fact that Dan White couldn't live with
what he did, no matter how the courts
tried to let him off.

My second reaction was grief that
society so discriminates against me and
my gay sisters and brothers that I feel
relieved at someone’s death. It made me
realize what a burden of disapproval we
live with, what a threat of annihilation.

But that’s in big—city San Francisco —
isn’t Vermont safe? Vermont, a state of
small towns, isn't safe either. The same

scenario plays out here.

In Windham County, Steven Kuchta
was sentenced to five years in prison for
the manslaughter death of a man rumored
to have made a "homosexual pass" at him.
Kuchta pleaded guilty to clubbing his
victim in the head with a board, shooting
him in the head with a .22 caliber rifle,
then stuffing his body into the
crawlspace under the house.

The state’s attorney in the case, John
Rocray, was quoted in a Burlington Free
Press article as admitting that one reason
he lessened the charges was that the case
involved homosexuality, and he wasn't
sure of the jury, because people "get
upset" about homosexuality.

I thought then about a giant class
action suit on behalf of all gays and
lesbians. We are not receiving equal
protection under the law. Courts are
declaring that gay lives are worth less
than anyone else’s, that those who cause
gay deaths, no matter how heinous the
circumstances, merit only the lightest of
possible penalties.

When Harvey Milk was assassinated,
all of us died a little. When his killer
was in effect slapped on the wrist, justice
for everyone died a little more and we
learned once again what oppression is. We
saw how homophobia infects the legal

system even in San Francisco, the place

“Why is it I feel as though
hunting season has been
opened on gay people?

Then just this week, in Poultney, a
young man is being held in the death of
a neighbor, a food service worker at
Green Mountain College. The news reports
suggest that the suspect believed his
victim was a homosexual, though there is
no evidence the two had ever seen each
other before. He will be psychiatrically
evaluated to determine whether he is
competent to stand trial and whether he

was sane at the time of the knifing.

Why is it that I feel as though
hunting season has been opened on gay
people? Within the last five years, there
have been many more deaths than I list
here: beatings, drownings, shootings,
knifings. And why is it that ‘I keep
hoping things have changed‘?

Gay men and lesbians bleed red blood,
have families who love us or don’t, jobs
that contribute to society, friends we go
to the movies with. We pay taxes, have
children, go to school, care for others.
Some of us find one special person to
love and live with, others are social
butterflies. The same is true for

heterosexuals. Why then are judges issuing

hunting licenses for our lives?

most of us regard as safe, where we have
the most visibility and power.

And now we live with the threat of
murder, with the knowledge that anyone
can virtually get away with murder if he
can claim that his victim was gay or
made a homosexual pass at him. We carry
the burden of when and how we must lie
about our lives in order to protect them.
That’s what oppression is, and it ranges
from having our jobs, our homes, and our
children taken away to having our very

lives threatened.

But that’s exactly why we have to
stand up, be proud, parade through the
streets: to show that we live our lives
strongly in spite of harassment and
threats, to show that we are not ashamed
of who we are. It's also why I keep
writing about lesbian and gay issues,
though I feel exposed and vulnerable
every time I do. And it's why Harvey
Milk ran for office — to give gay people
a voice, to make us visible even though
he knew -he would probably be
assassinated in office. He made a taped
will before his death, and in it he said:
"If a bullet should enter my brain, let
that bullet destroy every closet door."