WILB. HQ75 .097. IIUT1 I mattslienarrl: I a trauerlv remembered natie 22 I introducing: IIIG samara inundation lltlile 21 I giving llaeli: the Ileaee s. iustiee center IIa!Ie12 VOLUME XIII, NUMBER 10 Stonewall Revisited at New York Vigil www.avh.org A candlelight vigil protest- ing anti-gay violence turned ironically ugly when police than 100 during their march down Fifth Avenue in arrested mo re demonstrators New York City. “There were thousands of us covering every inch of the streets, the park, every bench. This is the best thing I ’ve ever been part of in the gay community!” The October 19 political murdered Wyoming student Matthew expected to attract about 500 participants. and Internet advertising brought in more protesters than either organizers or police expected. By the time the crowd left the Plaza Hotel, bearing signs reading “Matthew Shepard: Killed by Homophobia” and carrying fake coffins on their they numbered funeral for Shepard was But word-of—inouth shoulders, more than 5,000. Though the organizers had no permit — they feared the city would restrict their activ- ities —— police at first allowed to move freely along Fifth Avenue sidewalks. But once the crowd moved into the streets, officers began arresting people, including many organizers and mar- protesters shals. Witnesses said police drove crowds, often blocking those who tried to return to the sidewalks. There were also reports of trampling demonstrators sitting on the ground and officers using force to arrest even protesters who were complying with police instructions. Several motorcycles into police horses PEACEFUL VIGIL, p7 Hate EM6Ndns res; I-_;~‘ ‘NOVEMBER 1998 WWW.VTPRlDE.ORG Crime Exposed in the Northeast Kingdom I Victory Town Clerk Receives Homophobic Death Threat s much as we as Vermonters would like to think otherwise, hate is among us. Just ask Ilene Kanoff. She now goes around the Northeast Kingdom looking over her shoulder, wondering whether the people who left her a very public and very ugly message on the Victory town hall bulletin board are there. “I never walk around town,” said Kanoff, the town clerk in the tiny town northeast of St. Johnsbury. “I’m never by myself. Even in my own home, I’m rarely by myself. I’m very nervous. Some people think: ‘Just brush it off. Whoever is behind this is not going to kill you.’ But you just don’t know. Look at Colebrook. It’s definite- ly affected me.” The Colebrook to which Kanoff refers is in New Hampshire, the little town in the I North Country where a wing nut with an arsenal of weapons and a grudge against local officials in neighboring Columbia went on a rampage last year, gunning down two state troopers, a newspaper editor and the local judge against whom he held the grudge. In Victory, it has not yet reached that stage, but the note that Kanoff found tacked to the bulletin board on Aug. 31 was definitely ominous. It was a picture of a smiling Kanoff astride a motorcycle, which she had just been licensed to drive. Drawn on the picture, in red ink, were a dot on her fore- head — apparently to represent a bullet hole — and a slash across her neck. Pasted over the picture in cutout letters was “Death To Queers.” “I have never denied I am gay (actually bisexual) and did not hide that fact from people in town,” Kanoff wrote in The Caledonian-Record, the Northeast Kingdom’s newspa- per. “All I want is for the hatred and harassment to end, the per- son or persons who are behind the picture punished and my life back. Is that too much to ask? Please, good people of Victory, say ‘No.”’ So, what is being done to find and punish the person or people responsible? Well, that’s not entirely clear. The state police took the picture and checked it for fingerprints. A partial print was recovered, but it was not certain that it would match up to someone who is on file with the FBI or other law enforcement agencies. The case has become some- thing of a campaign issue in the Northeast Kingdom, where Jan Paul is the current state’s attor- ney. She is being‘ challenged by Vincent Illuzzi, the veteran state senator for the region. It was Illuzzi who latched on to the issue and began helping Kanoff raise its profile. He has called for an inquest, a secret proceeding in which the state’s- attorney can call witness- es before a judge and force them to testify under oath. The idea behind an inquest is that a prose- cutor can obtain evidence that otherwise eludes state police.’ Paul has resisted such calls wcrontpio VCLGR Annual Conference, Town Meeting Attendance Abysm BY MAX STROUD ,_ onflicting events, an < agenda focused on farni- lies, drab advertising and confusion over workshops resulted in record low attendance for the sixth annual VCLGR conference. Of the barely 150 Vermonters who attended most were from the surrounding coun- ties of Addison, Chittenden and Washington with little to no rep- resentation from the Northeast Kingdom, Brattleboro and Bennington areas. As people moved from one workshop to another the conversations in the halls revolved around one ques- tion, where is everybody else? “This year was the lowest turnout and it could been many factors” commented conference planner Virginia Renfrew, “the holiday weekend, held in Burlington, lack of interest.” Winooski business person Jay Schuster shared why he did not attend. “There were two other competing events in my cul- ture(s): The Destiny Peking Foliage Faerie gathering, and the Black and Blue parties in Montreal. I went to Montreal.” Stephen Kopstein, Hurmington resident and Mountain Pride A panel discussion called ‘Deconstructing the Fence.‘ Bisexuals in GLT Communities” was one of more than 25 workshops ojfered at the conference. Media board member, pointed out the irony of the choice he made for how to spend his weekend, saying, “I learned more about the radical faeries at the last town meeting and that was what had inspired me to become more involved. So, if the conference hadn’t been the same weekend as the last Destiny (faerie camp) gathering, I probably would have gone.” The focus on gay marriage and family life was also a deterrent for many in the community who do r1o't"s'e'e_"thi's ‘type of family life‘ ‘ as something they aspire to. This year’s conference was titled “We are Vermonters, too!” in response to a flyer placed in newspapers across the state claiming “Vermonters do not want same-sex marriage.” Although Virginia Renfrew stat- ed that she fe1t~“that this year’s conference covered many issues within our community. The workshops included issues about our children, growing old, youth, health, legal, marriage and ‘more?’ i ' ' ' ' ‘ photo: Scot Applegate Schuster shared an opposing opinion on the family focus say- ing “the conference schedule seemed weighted towards ‘mar- riage’ and "families’. Although I am interested in procuring rights for myself and my partner(s), I am not interested in becoming a Puritan to get them.” The advertising used was not compelling in attracting either- participants or workshop facilita- tors. “I have decided that not - . I ‘CONFERENC.E.'p28