Out in the Mountains

From the Editor:

On Jeffords: “Thank God” or “Oh God”?

Fred Kuhr

WINOOSKI -- Political activist and
OITM staff writer Paul Olsen recently
arranged for Senator Jim Jeffords to meet
with representatives of Vermont's gay
and lesbian community in Jeffords’
Downtown Burlington office. Those
meeting with the Senator were Olsen,
Karin Eade from Outright Vermont,
Susan Aranoff and Mary Hurlie from the
Vermont Coalition for Lesbian and Gay
Rights, and myself. Although Jeffords
nervously fiddled with a Snapple cap for
most of the half hour, he was able to
answer a number of our questions. And
even though many of you will be reading
this after Election Day, at least it will
give you a sense of either “Thank God”
or “Oh God!”

On his co-sponsorship of the
Employment Non~Discrimination Act
(ENDA): “As time goes by, I became
more and more familiar with the
problems” and saw the need to take care
of these problems.

On extending civil rights protection based
upon sexual orientation beyond
employment: “What are you referring to
specifically? What kind of situations?”

After explaining that issues such as
housing, credit, and education are not
covered by ENDA: “I’d have to go area
by area and analyze what the present law
is...I am generally against discrimination.
That’s the best way to answer it, I
guess.”

On being a “gay—friendly” Republican:
“Being a Republican, I get beaten very
badly on this issue. I need a little more
TLC than perhaps a Democrat does on
these issues...Sometimes I have to be less
visible and less obvious in the way I
handle things...I think you get more
welcomed (by the gay and lesbian
community) because the normal attack
comes from the Right...All those issues

. are centered with the Christian Right.

But it’s not the Republican Party, it’s
maybe a third of it. Sometimes they think
they’re the whole Republican Party. The
problem for us is, in primaries, they all
vote.”

On what he can do in Washington to
change the minds of other Republicans:
‘‘All I can do is take Jesse (Helms)
on...and hold hands with Ted
Kennedy...I’m not afraid of that!”

Do you have a conduit to our
community?: “I have friends in your
community.”

Are you interested in setting up a liaison
relationship similar to what our
community has with Governor Dean?:
“Yes...I would appreciate people we
know we can communicate with.”

And what about those domestic
partnership benefits that are treated as
taxable income by the IRS?: “There’s
so much inequity in that whole area (the
U.S. tax code) that when you start to try
to deal with it, I mean, I want to deal
with it, I want to get everybody on equal
footing...Under my plan, everyone
would be treated the same.”

On social evolution: “There’s a whole
evolution (concerning) the family. A lot
of (people) grew up with the
understanding there would be a male
father and a female mother and there
would be kids and a marriage and the
mother wasn’t gonna work. So you had
a lot of things skewed towards trying to
protect the relationship which embodied
the traditional family. Now with
two—worker families and different
relationships and kids all over the place,
floating around in different marriages,
and on the street, and everywhere else, a
lot of those traditional approaches and
things have disappeared. But that’s a
social evolution, and it’s the
social/cultural expectations which are
changing. So sometimes it’s difficult for
people to adjust, to go back and analyze,
‘Well, what is the purpose of marriage?”

And finally, when asked if he would
have a problem in hiring gay or lesbian
staffers, he said, “I don’t ask. I leave my
staff with their personal lives.”

Don’t ask, don’t tell! Where have I
heard that before? V