- Out in the Mountains

Out in the Mountains
Established in 1986

Editor: Hugh Coyle

Business Manager: Steven West

Production Manager: Staci Visco

Circulation Manager: David Grist

Website Managers: Kathie Sawyer
and Tracy Buttles

Contributors: Jess Bell, Bob
Bolyard. Susan Murray, Paul
Olsen, Beth Robinson, Ross
Sneyd, Chris Tebbets

Out in the Mountains (ISSN 1081-
5562) is published monthly by
Mountain Pride Media, Inc. The
newspaper maintains offices at
109 South Winooski Avenue in
Burlington, Vermont. Our mailing
address is PO Box 177, Burlington
VT 05402-0177. Our e-mail
address is oitm@together.net. Bulk
rate postage for the mailing of the
newspaper is paid in Burlington,
Vermont. The subscription rate is

$20 per year within the United '

States.
© 1997, Out in the Mountains.

Statement of Purpose

The purpose of Out in the
Mountains is to serve as a voice for
lesbians, gay -men, bisexuals.
transgendered people, and our
supporters in Vermont. We wish
the newspaper to be a source of
information, insight, and
affirmation. We also see OITM as a
vehicle for the celebration of the
goodness and diversity of the
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans-
gendered communities here in
Vermont and elsewhere.

Editorial Policy

We will consider for publication
any material which broadens our
understanding of our lifestyles and
of each other. Views and opinions
appearing in the paper do not
necessarily represent those of the
staff. This paper cannot and will
not endorse any candidates or
actions of public officials on issues
of importance to lesbians, gay
men, bisexuals, and trans-
gendered persons.

We reserve the right not to
publish any material deemed to be
overtly racist, sexist, anti—Semitje,
ageist, elassist, xenophobic or
homophobic.

Writers‘ guidelines are available
on request. All materials submitted
must include a name and contact
number. However, within the
pages of the newspaper, articles
may appear anonymously upon
request, and strict confidentiality
will be observed.

Articles, letters, and artwork
should be sent to us by the 15th
of the month prior to the month of
publication (i.e. February 15th for
the March issue). We encourage
and implore our readers to do what
they can to make OITM a paper
which truly represents _the many
voices of our communities.

Materials should be sent to:

Out in the Mountains
PO Box 177

Burlington, Vermont
05402-0 1 77

E—mail: oitm@together.net

Advertising

If you would like to place an ad in
Out in the Mountains, please
contact us for rates and guidelines.
Ad copy should be mailed to the
address above or call Hugh Coyle
at (802) 388-6503.

Page 2

Editorial: Caught in the Balance of Winter and Spring

by Hugh Coyle

Outside, the late winter snows have become crusty and drab.
When the temperatures finally rise above freezing, melting ice
and slick mud make my daily walk to the post office a test of
survival skills. Each day my white long-haired dog drags enough
sand and salt into the house to fill a dozen vacuum cleaner bags.
It’s March in Vennont, and, like most of my rural neighbors, I’m
getting a bit testy about it.

Oh, I could imagine running naked along the shimmering hot
sands of Bermuda with Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas by my
side, but when such daydreams are so incredibly far from reality,
it’s more an act of self-torture than titillation. Instead, I should
stick to driving the back roads and checking on this year’s pothole
crop. Maybe I could even help my home state’s economy by
thinking up new uses for maple syrup. “Sugar on snow” could
take on a whole new meaning.

Despite the physical and emotional challenges of the season, I
can rest assured that spring is coming. The daylight hours are
getting longer, the trees are beginning to think about budding,
and the daily highs and lows on the thermometer are registering
some progress upward. Still, long-time Vermonters tell us not to
get our hopes up. To hear some of them tell it, spring will never
come ‘round these parts again.

To endure mud season in Vermont, one must work hard to achieve
a balance between optimism and pessimism. Imagine a set of
scales, with hopes on one side and fears on the other. Late winter
in Vermont stacks some serious weights on each side of those
scales, but as physics teaches us — balance can be achieved no
matter how heavily stacked the two sides may be.

This is a lesson that we in the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and
transgendered communities should take to heart. Quite often, it
seems as though the odds are stacked against us and we have
little chance of winning. Passage of the Defense of Marriage Act
(DOMA) seemed like that last year, and continues to dishearten
the community as state after state adopts laws to prevent the legal
recognition of same-sex marriages. At the same time, however,
we came so very close to seeing the passage of the Employee
Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), and heard predictions that in
the coming year, such legislation would stand a very good chance
at becoming law.

On a set of scales, DOMA and ENDA have very different
weights, and hardly balance one another out. Marriage (as Susan
Murray points out in this month’s Legal Briefs column) hasia
sweeping number of benefits associated with it, many of which
are currently denied to same-sex couples. ENDA, by contrast,
has a narrower focus, and though it might apply to more members
of our community, the benefits associated with it are substantially
lesser. One might even argue that there are no real gains or benefits
at all — only a legal course of action to protect us against harmful
job-based discrimination.

Meanwhile, a number of members of our community continue
in the struggle to secure higher and higher levels of HIV and
AIDS funding. News of improved treatments is met with
heightened warnings about the risks of unsafe sex; statistics
showing that the fastest growing risk group is women/straight
teens/African Americans (take your pick; I’ve heard them all)
continue to pour out of the nation’s databanks and often go
unchallenged by those who hear and spread them.

As a species, wehumans crave balance. “Preserve the status

quo;" “Don’t rock the boat;” “Don’t try to fix something unless it’s
broken” — these aphorisms, which are widely held by American
society to be nearly gospel, challenge certain notions of progress,
particularly for those who exist outside or on the margins of
mainstream society. They stand in opposition to sayings like “You
can’t make an omelet unless you break some eggs.” Quite often on
the American playing field, g/l/b/t people are cast as the ones
threatening to break the eggs. In many ways, however, were the
ones working hard to create a true sense of balance in society — a
balance finnly grounded in a sense of equality, of (to quote the Pledge
of Allegiance) “liberty and justice for all.”

I recall a brilliant piece of conceptual German animation involving
four black-clad figures standing on the comers of a square platform
in space. A chest stood fixed in the center of the square, and each
person eyed it with a mixture of curiosity and desire. Whenever one
stepped toward it, however, the balance on the platfonn shifted and
threatened to tip them all off. Ironically, as one person stepped toward
the center, the platform would tip down and cause the chest to slide
away and toward the opposite person.

This is how most American perceive of equal rights. As one group

inches toward them, the balance of the whole field is upset. Clearly,
the solution to this problem for most people is to simply stay put. If
we all just stay where we are, everything will be OK. Don’t worry;
be happy.
So let’s say that most of straight white middle-class America is sitting
smack dab in the center of that floating platform, right on top of the
chest. And let’s say that in the four comers we have (take your pick;
any oppressed or disenfranchised group will do) a welfare mom, an
African American, a physically challenged person, and a
democratically elected unbiased representative from the g/l/b/t
community.

Now here’s a scenario we’ve all heard before: let’s imagine that
the g/l/b/t person steps forward toward that chest full of equal rights.
The balance starts to tip; the chest starts sliding away; and people
start accusing the g/l/b/t community of threatening everyone’s equal
rights. Likewise, when the African American steps forward to catch
the sliding chest of rights, the balance is once more upset and the
chest starts sliding somewhere else. We could just retreat to our
four corners and stand there forever, content with perfect balance.
Or, we could enact the solution to this mental puzzle.

If all four comers work together, balance can still be maintained-
even as each of the groups moves closer to the chest in the middle.
With such a common desire identified and placed as the center,
progress could be made and the goal could be ultimately achieved.
In this scenario, if someone in the center then tries to push one of
the four groups away, that act — not the movement of the four
groups —- would upset the balance and threaten stability.

Ultimately, this is just one of those mind games that help to pass
the dreary days of late winter, but it offers yet another reminder to us
that the struggle for equal rights is not something we undertake
alone. We need to continue working toward uniting our efforts and
balancing our needs with our desires, even as certain setbacks (and
advances, it should be noted) threaten to tip us off course.

Outside my office, night has fallen and the temperature is
plummeting once again. There’s snow in the air, and I can see the
pile of sand where my dog was lyingjust a moment ago. So there’s
this platform in space, only this time I’m in the center, and standing
on the four corners are Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Denzel
Washington, and David Duchovny...V

Errata: Last month's “On the Other Hand” column, “The Risks ot a Bisexual Identity,” was written by Monique Van de_Van, not

Kim Ward as noted. OITM apologizes for the error.

 

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