Out in the Mountains

by Lee Russell ,

“The ACLU’s main mission is to
uphold the Bill of Rights and to protect
people’s civil liberties, whether it be in the
courts or trying to advance legislation that
will do the same thing, or oppose legisla-
tion that will detract from civil liberties. We
have found that because there are no stat-
utes protecting the civil rights of gay men
and lesbians, there’s really nothing the
courts can do to protect these individuals
from discrimination. The only way to
achieve such a goal is to get a major civil
rights bill through the Legislature which
will add gay men and lesbians to the pro-
tected categories. We can’t have ten per-
cent of the population not being treated like
frst-class citizens. I see this personally,
and the ACLU does too, as a fundamental
human rights issue that had to be at the top
of our agenda, and it has been.

“This bill will make a tremendous
difference (in the lives of gay and lesbian
Vermonters). Right now, if people lose
their jobs or apartments, there’s absolutely
no protection. These are fundamental ne-
cessities that people have to have — jobs and
housing — and they can be denied because
of sexual orientation. So if we have a bill
that protects them from that, they’ll be able
to live their lives normally. A fundamental
change will happen if this passes. That’s
why it is so important.”

So says Tim Mazur, the Legislative
Director of the American Civil Liberties
Union in Montpelier. Mazur has been a
strong advocate on issues of importance to
gay men and lesbians in this state since be-
coming the Vermont ACLU’s lobbyist in
1986. He worked hard to help win passage
of laws prohibiting discrimination on the
basis of HIV status, and has been a key
figure in the coalition working on the Civil

Rights Bill since it was first introduced in
1988. In these efforts Mazur works closely
with Verrnont’s gay and lesbian leaders, es-
pecially Keith Goslant and Holly Perdue,
the co-liaisons to the Governor.

The ACLU’s role in the Hate Crimes
Bill, which passed last spring, was more
complex. The ACLU wanted to ensure that
the right to free speech, even hateful
speech, was preserved. Despite some reser-
vations, it was in favor of most of the bill’s
other provisions because of their overall
impact on gay and lesbian civil rights and
chose not to oppose it.

Mazur feels that the ACLU’s role in
the Civil Rights Bill is very helpful because
of its reputation for evenhandedness. “The
ACLU, more than any other organization,
is not really a special interest group. We
don’t go in and advocate for one particular
group of people, which most lobbyists do.
We advocate for the rights of everybody.
And I think the fact that we’re part of the
leadership of this movement is good, be-
cause it shows that this issue is not just
focused at one group of people — that it is
focused on civil rights for all. In the whole
scheme of things, this broadens the picture
of rights for people, and I think the ACLU
helps to make that clear.

“People basically trust us because
we ’re consistent. I think there were people
in the gay community who were angry at us
for not pushing the Hate Crimes Bill harder
and for having reservations about it. I think
that may help us in lobbying for the Civil
Rights Bill because legislators might re-
member that we had problems with the
Hate Crimes Bill, and they’ll see our con-
sistency. And maybe they won’t think the
Civil Rights Bill is such a bad idea.”

The bill itself is simple. It doesn’t put
gays and lesbians in a special class or give

  
  

Tim Mazur, Legislative Direooaf the Arnei-
can Civil Liberties Union, marches in Montpe-
lier on Pride Day 1989

them special protection, and it doesn’t
condone specific behavior. It simply adds
gays and lesbians as a category to the stat-
utes which already prohibit discrimination
on the basis of sex, race, religion, etc.

Part of the strategy for getting the Civil
Rights Bill passed is to show legislators and
citizens that it is a sensible bill with broad-
based support, and that there are no rational
reasons to oppose it.

There is evidence that this strategy is
working, and that the Legislature is slowly
becoming sensitive to gay and lesbian
concerns. This is the fourth time the bill has
been introduced, and each time it has fared
better than the time before. The first time it
was introduced, it died in committee in the
House. The second time, it passed in the
Senate. On the third try, it made it to the
floor of the House, where it was debated
and voted on. The bill didn’t pass, but the
vote in favor was respectable.

(continued on next page)

 

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