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VERMONT’S NEWSPAPER for LESBIANS and GAY MEN

| Vol. 1 No. 7

Lesbian/Gay Liasons meet with Kunin

by Beth Dingman

On Thursday, July 3rd, Terje
Anderson and I met with Governor
Kunin. Terje began by describing the
current situation with regard to AIDS
education. The State Dept. of Health
recently received a $100,000 grant to do
preventative education. Terje stressed
that these programs work best when
administered by community-based
groups. He asked that the Health Dept.
work more closely with gays, and that
the department concern itself not only
with education and diagnosis, but with
coordination of follow up services. The
Governor's aide, Liz Bankowsky,
promised to talk with the Health Dept.
concerning these issues.

I brought up our concern with the
fact that many supporters of the Equal
Rights Amendment are working hard to
dissociate themselves from any
connections to lesbian or gay rights. We
pointed out that anti-ERA people are
making the connections with lesbian
and gay issues as a scare tactic, and
we hoped that ERA supporters would
respond to that by affirming the rights
of lesbian and gays, not just denying
that the ERA relates in any way to
gay and lesbian issues. Madeleine
replied that you can't fight too many
battles over one issue, but that she
understood the problem and would try
to be conscious of it when she spoke
about the ERA. We also stressed that
ERA supporters should go on the
offensive, pointing out the bigotry and

sexism in the absurd accusations of
those campaigning against the ERA.
We said that one of our main

problems was trying to fight negative
stereotyping, and that we would
appreciate any help we could get with
presenting positive images of lesbians
and gay.

Vermont at present has no law
Preventing discrimination in housing or
employment based on sexual preference.
The governor asked if we knew of any
specific cases of discrimination, because
until there are documented cases, no
one in state government will consider it
a problem worth addressing. Terje said

he knew of three cases of people being
fired for being gay. He suggested that
the Governor reinstate the Vermont
State Human Rights Commission. This
commission could then investigate cases
of discrimination and encourage the
legislature to pass laws preventing such
abuses. Liz Bankowski said she wasn't
sure that resurrecting the commission
was the best way to proceed, but
promised to look into it and come up
with some recommendations.

I came away from the meeting
with some very positive impressions. I
realized how difficult it had been for
Madeleine to appear at the Lesbian and
Gay Rights rally in Burlington, and yet
she came (after some encouragement)
because she felt it was the right thing
to do. When I asked her if she had
gotten much negative feedback after
attending the rally, she told the story
of going into a small country store and
seeing her picture (cut from the
Burlington Free Press) with the banner
proclaiming the Lesbian and Gay Pride
Rally behind her, taped up on the cash
register. She said that she hadn't gotten
that many negative letters, but she
didn't know how many cash registers
there were around the state with her
picture pasted to them.

I think it is important that we
realize that Governor Kunin is at least
conscious of the issues and that she
does believe that discrimination, based

on religion, sexual preference or
whatever, is wrong. Terje later told me
that Madeleine is the first governor in
Vermont to attend a Lesbian and Gay
Rights Rally. This is impressive and
attests not only to Madeline's courage,
but, probably even more significantly,
to the efforts of the lesbian and gay
community to make her aware of these
issues.

Of course, no politician, or
politician's aide, will champion the
cause of gay and lesbian rights without
some real encouragement from her
zonstituency. So keep those cards and
letters coming. If we wish to be equally
protected under the laws of this state,
then we have to make that happen.

September 1986 l

Around
the
State

VLGR meets with
Snelling

Members of V

“I 5 B.‘
Spannbauer, Jim Morgan, and Philip
Roberts, met recently with former
Governor Richard Snelling in South
Burlington. The former Governor is a
Republican candidate for the U.S.
Senate who is running against
/ incumbent Democratic Senator Patrick
Leahy. Members of the lesbian/gay
community were surprised Snelling

(VLGR), Nancy

agreed to a meeting, considering the
lack of interest from many state-wide
officials. (But this is an election
year...)

The purpose of the meeting was to
introduce ourselves to Snelling and let
him know that there are lesbian and
gay voters in the state.

The following issues were discussed
at the thirty minute meeting: would
candidate Snelling support and
co-sponsor a national Lesbian/Gay
Rights bill, would he support
continued/increased funding for AIDS
research and education, and would he
encourage liberalization of immigration
laws pertaining to openly lesbian/gay
persons entering the U.S.

Snelling had previously answered a
questionnaire sent to him by VLGR.
Those answers appeared to be relatively
positive. But is was the general
consensus of the VLGR members
present at the meeting that Snelling’s
verbal answers were not as positive,
being typically generic and somewhat
evasive. Snelling stated repeatedly that
he would have to examine each piece of
lesbian/gay legislation, and then he
would decide whether or not the
support pro-gay bills.

continued, page 5