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| Vol. 2, No. 4

H. 247, the sexual orientation
anti-discrimination bill introduced into the
Vermont House of Representatives in
February, was voted favorably out of the
House Judiciary Committee by a 7-4 margin
on April 3. The bill was taken to the full
House on April 8, where it was voted to
send it for further hearings and
consideration by the House General and
Military Affairs Committee.

Vi Luginbuhl (R- South Burlington)
introduced the bill onto the House floor and
gave a detailed statement of support based
on testimony heard by the Judiciary
Committee. It was then moved to send the
bill to the General and Military Affairs
Committee, after John Murphy (D- Ludlow),
chairperson of that committee, formally made
that request and noted that his committee

VERMONT’S NEWSPAPER for 

MAY 4 1987

H.247 Sent Back to Committees, 

had voted 5 - 3 in favor of accepting this
bill. Conservatives in the House attempted to
defeat this move and force a vote on the
bill by the full House.

According to both supporters and
opponents of this bill, had a vote been
forced, the bill probably would have failed
badly. This was due primarily to intensive
phone lobbying by Eagle Forum members
and their allies over the preceding week.

Howard Russell of VLGR and the
Vermont Coalition of Lesbians and Gay
Men said, "A lot of support evaporated over
the last few days before the vote was
scheduled. Legislators were getting intensive
pressure from these people and a lot of
them indicated that they were switching their
votes or at least leaning towards switching
their votes simply because of the politics
involved."

Interview: GLSA and UVM

On March 9, the University of
Vermont became the twenty eighth school in
the nation to pass a non-discrimination
policy that protects people of alternative
sexual orientation. The passage of this
legislation was the result of several semesters
of research and lobbying on the part of
members of the gay alliance at UVM. The
following is a joint interview between Mimi
Desouza, who was responsible for getting
the policy finally passed, and Sarah Coy, a
member of the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual
Alliance at UVM.

Q: Whose idea was it to introduce
the non-discrimination clause and how did
they go about it?

A: When GLSA (Gay, Lesbian
Student Association) was re-introduced on
campus in 1984, the gay community at that
time was small and unstable. One of the
founding members, whose name I can’t
reveal, decided that UVM had a need for a
non-discrimination policy. The woman met
with the Dean of Students, Keith Miser, and
encouraged him :3 research the process for
changing the existing ND clause. She
introduced me to Keith at that time so I

could continue work with him the following
year, 1985. Together we investigated how
changes needed to be made. At that time
the only schools that protected gays were
the Ivys and a few large state schools.
During the divestment issue of 1986, the
policy was pushed by the wayside. I was
angered that UVM’s administration was
incapable of dealing with two important
issues simultaneously. I feel that they went
with divestment because it was more
sensational and it was easier to ignore the
behind the scenes problems.

In the Fall of 1986, I was elected a
Student Association Senator and I used my
position to get the ball rolling again.
Everybody had kept stalling because there
was such a lack of .organization in dealing
with policy changes However, in the fall
Keith sent out surveys to schools with ND
clauses to get information on how they
conducted their changes, and the senate
conducted a VSOP (VT Student OPini°"
Poll) which showed that over 60% of UVM
students supported the policy change. In
February of 1987 the policy changes were
made in the Faculty Senate and the Staff

continued, page 2

:3;

 

 

GAY MEN

May, 1987 l

 

There was disagreement among
s pf this bill as to whether they

- an this bill to be sent to committee

ai or they wanted a full House debate
and vote. jSome supporters wanted house
members to be forced to stand up on one

‘side or the other on this issue. However,

Representative Micque Glitman (D-
Burlington), primary sponsor of H. 247, said
"we were afraid that by having the vote
now, we would have seen a lot of potential
supporters voting ‘no’ on this bill. and once
you’ve forced a legislator to make a public
stand on an issue like this, it's much harder
to get them to change that." She went on
to note that in Wisconsin, the only state
that currently has civil rights legislation for
lesbians and gay men, they never brought
their bill up for a vote in the full house
until they knew they had the votes to pass
it.

continued, page 2

Table of Contents

Letters to the Editor 3
Caring and Sharing 3
Mother’s Day 4
3 Book Review 5
H.247 Lobbying 6
H.247 Testimony 6
Media Watch 7
UVM Sexuality Course 8

Body Works 10
March on D.C. 11
Dear Gert & Alice 11
VT Resources 12

Memorial Day

Remember those
who have fallen
from AIDS.