Out in the Mountains

VERMONT'S NEWSPAPER FOR LESBIANS, GAY MEN, AND BISEXUALS

 
     

Volume VIII, Number 8 | INNEBSW, OF VEv_:iMQNT November 1993
Middlebury College Grants Lesbian Feminist
Domestic Partner Benefits W 9 1993 Collective in

Michael Warner

On September 1, 1993, Middlebury Col-
lege joined a growing number of em-
ployers when it began extending to do-
mestic partners the same benefit package
(to the extent permitted by law) previously
only available to married spouses.

Partners must meet the College’s definition
of domestic partner which involves filling
out a Request for Dependent Benefits
fonn. Beginning in September married
spouses must also fill out the same form.
The form asks that spouses/partners meet
certain criteria, including sharing the com-
mon necessities of life, being over age 18,
not legally married to another person, etc.
Beyond that there are further conditions
which must be met when a couple either
can not or chooses not to produce a mar-
riage license. The change in policy applies
to opposite sex partners who are unmarried
as well. It will also extend benefits to nat-
ural or adopted children of a domestic part-
ner of an employee.

In announcing the change in policy to
members of the Middlebury College Staff

  

Council, Toni '  “ " ‘
Human Resources stated that this change in
policy was what the President and Trustees
wanted to do and that it was the “right thing
to do.” Further, in the Middlebury College
Employee Handbook whenever there is a
listing for “spouse” that listing will be
changed to “spouse or domestic partner.”

Although this comes at a time when its
peer institutions are making similar adjust-
ments in benefits, it is also a victory for
Middlebury College’s faculty and staff g/l/
b organization GLEAM (Gay Lesbian Em-
ployees At Middlebury). Group members
first met with Middlebury’s President John
McCardell in the_Spring of 1992 to discuss
changes in benefits. That was followed last
winter by a lengthy proposal primarily
drafted by Economics Professor Richard
Cornwall. Hastened perhaps by the climate
on other campuses and the Vermont State
Labor Relations Board’s ruling affecting
the University of Vermont, th eproposal
made its way though the administration to
become policy in less than a year. V

The 0 Team

Team Q from
Burlington place
53rd among
teams competing
in the 1993 Bur-
ltngton Triathlon,
held Sept. 12 at
North Beach. '

Team members
include.‘ David
Grist, runner,
left; Brian Far-
rell, swimmer;
and Tom Koch,
bicyclist.

 

v 
O

A El Salvador

Stephanie Lind

The usual article about the political strug-
gle in El Salvador begins: “El Salvador is
a country the size of Massachusetts where
over 75,000 people have died in the last
10 years of civil war." It goes on to talk
about the struggle over land and sustain-
able living between the government and
the civilian armed resistance: the FMLN.

At the 1993 National Conference for
Women in El Salvador, a small group of
women changed the usual revolutionary
picture of El Salvador. They were fighting
for human rights, peace and justice not
only for the poor in that country, but for
lesbians as well. The women are from a
small group called the Lesbian Feminist
Collective of the Half Moon (CO-
FESIVIEL); the first known group to con-
front the oppression against gays and les-
bians in El Salvador.

With a short history of 10 months thus
far, they emerged from a clandestine ex-
istence to hold two workshops at the
women’s conference in July. The first
workshop, entitled Lesbian Sexuality, was
led by two members of the group. Par-
ticipants explored and debunked myths of
lesbianism. The responses varied. There
was fear and homophobia as well as sup-
port among the women at the workshop.
One woman said she had learned that , “If
a lesbian makes a pass at me, so what?
The worst that could happen is that I
wouldn’t be attracted to her.” At the end
of the workshop one woman asked, “How
can we begin talking about these issues to
poor women in the countryside when their
primary concern is how to feed their fam-
ilies—Isn’t it soon to be bringing this is-
sue up? Dori’t weneed to fight for more
basic rights first?”

That question was answered the next day
at the Lesbian Mothers Workshop. Much

Continued on Page 12