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WINNIPEG, Manitoba —— A gay
man has been elected mayor of
one of Canada’s largest cities.
“It was a history-making
night,” said Glen Murray, who

easily defeating six other candi- ,

dates.

Winnipeg is Manitoba’s capi-
tal and, with 667,000 residents,
is the largest Canadian city
between Toronto and Calgary,
Alberta. .

Murray, 41, became one of
Canada’s better-known gay
politicians six years ago when,
with his troubled foster son, he
was featured in a film documen-
tary called “A Kind of Family.”

There are only a couple dozen
openly gay politicians in
Canada, including two members
of the federal Parliament.

I eat marriage
tleteats

GAY MARRIAGE EFFORTS were
dealt serious setbacks in Alaska
and Hawaii on Election Day.

Struggling to satisfy both
social conservatives and the law
of the land, Hawaii took another
step toward banning same-sex
marriage, giving its Legislature
the go-ahead to write a new law.

In Alaska, voters wrote a gay-
marriage ban into their constitu-
tion.

The Hawaii initiative was
lawmakers’ latest try to sidestep
the state Supreme Court’s 1993
ruling that the state had no con-
stitutional right to ban homosex-
ual marriages because that would
deny some citizens the rights
provided to others.

The two sides in Hawaii spent
millions of dollars in a relentless
media campaign. A

Alaska’s constitutional
amendment defines marriage as
the union of one man and one
woman. The Legislature put the
question on the ballot after a
Superior Court judge ruled in
favor of two gay men who chal-
lenged the state ban on same-sex
marriage. The judge said choos-
ing a life partner was a funda-
mental right and the state had to
prove a compelling reason to
regulate it. ‘

I eav rights

GAY RIGHTS QUESTIONS were on
the ballots of several local com-
munities around the country on
Election Day. '
Voters in Fort Collins, Colo.,
defeated a measure to protect gays
and lesbians from discrimination‘.
In Maine, individual commu-
nities tried to write anti-discrimi-
nation bills to circumvent this
year’s statewide vote that over-

turned protections on the basis of _ .

sexual orientation.

South Portland approved a gay
rights initiative; Ogunquit’s vote
on a similar proposal was close-
ly defeated.

I first Iesliian  
congresswoman

WASHINGTON —— The first
openly gay candidate for
Congress has been elected.

Tammy Baldwin, a
Democratic state representative
from Wisconsin, defeated
Republican Josephine Musser,
the former state insurance com-
missioner, to replace retiring
GOP Rep. Scott Klug.

“She has broken down a very
large door,” said Elizabeth Birch,
executive director of the
Washington, D.C. based Human
Rights Campaign. “She has cre-
ated an arch of hope that future
gay and lesbian candidates will
be able to walk through.”

Two other openly lesbian
Democrats sought House seats.
Grethe Cammerrneyer, a former
Army colonel, was defeated by
GOP Rep. Jack Metcalf in
Washington state and Christine
Kehoe lost to Republican Rep.
Brian Bilbray in a San Diego
race.

Gay GOP Rep. Jim Kolbe of

Arizona won re-election over

Democrat Tom Volgy. It will be
Kolbe’s eighth term.

In an Oklahoma rematch,
Republican Rep. Frank Lucas
ea_sily won a fourth term against

Democrat Paul Barby, an op,e_nly‘__> H

gay Oklahoma City business-'“
man. '
Another openly gay member
of Congress, Democratic Rep.
Barney Frank of Massachusetts,
was unopposed for a 10th tenn. A

I Hflllllll GOIIDIBS

PARIS — Conservative lawmak-
ers in France have failed to
quash a bill in _ France’s
Parliament to give legal status to
homosexuals and other unmar-
ried couples.

After a marathon debate that
included a five-hour speech by
one of the bill’s most outspoken
opponents, .the National
Assembly’s leftist lawmakers
were able to save the bill in a
299-233 vote.-

Members oftparliament near-

ly came to blows over the con- ‘

troversial measure. The uproar
arose as’ Christine Boutin, a
member of the Union for French
Democracy, denounced the pro-
posal in a five-hour speech.
Boutin and other critics have
equated the .bill with gay mar-
riage and say they fear’ it could
open the doorto adoptions by
homosexual couples.

I SIIIIDIIW ellames *

HOUSTON — A false report of a
crime might bring an end to anti-
sodomy laws in Texas.

Sheriff’s deputies responded to
a report of an armed intruder inside
an apartment. They caught two
men having sex and arrested them.

Now, the 119-year-old law,
modified by the 1993

Legislature, makes homosexual
oral and anal sex.a misdemeanor
punishable by a fine of up to
$500.

“There is a zone of privacy
that’s been recognized by the

U.S. Supreme Court,” insists

David Jones, attorney for the two
arrested men, now out on bond
pending a court appearance. “It’s
in their interest that we fight the
sodomy law.”

LONDON — The top-selling
Sun tabloid, which earlier this
week ran a front-page headline
asking if Britain was being run
by “a gay mafia,” has changed its
policy on homosexuals.

“The Sun is no longer in the
business of destroying closet
gays’ lives by ‘exposing’ them as
homosexuals,” editor David-
Yelland said in a statement.

. The move followed word that
Agriculture Minister Nick
Brown was gay. Culture
Secretary Chris Smith is openly
gay, and Ron Davies resigned as
Welsh Secretary last month after
being mugged in an area known
for homosexual activity.

The Sun is Britain’s biggest-
selling daily newspaper and the
sister paper to The News of The

World, a sensational Sunday
tabloid that forced Brown to
reveal his homosexuality.

I Hate erimes

PITTSBURGH — The National
Gay and Lesbian Task Force is
making enacting hate crimes
statutes its top priority.

» The organization is launching a
campaign called Equality Begins
at Home to build support for
homosexuals and hate crimes laws
by meeting with townspeople,
holding rallies and prayer break-
fasts and displaying the AIDS
quilt.

Executive director Kerry
Lobel said members want to
make sure gays do not feel they
have to move to communities
where homosexuality is more
accepted.

“So many of us fled our
homes for those places because
we wanted a different kind of
life,” she said.»“But people are
not fleeing any longer.”

LARAMIE, WY. — Details of
the horrible crime committed

‘against Matthew Shepard are

starting to come out.

OUT IN THE MOUNTAINS _—- DECEMBER 1998 — 7

   the rest ntour worIrI.......

He was beaten and tied to a
fence by his attackers as they
grilled him for information so

they could burglarize his apart-‘

ment, a prosecutor said.

“As he lay there bleeding
and begging for hislife, he was
then bound to the buck fence,”
prosecutor Cal Rerucha told a
packed courtroom as a prelimi-
nary hearing for Aaron James
McKinney got under way.

McKinney and Russell
Arthur Henderson, both 21, are
accused of killing Shepard, a
University of Wyoming stu-
dent, after luring him out of a
campus bar to an isolated area
outside town.

Judge Robert B. Denhardt
ordered McKinney to stand
trial on charges of first-degree
murder, aggravated robbery
and kidnapping with intent to
inflict bodily injury or to ter-
rorize the victim.

The slightly built Shepard,
who had been pummeled with
the butt of a .357-caliber
Magnum, suffered 18 blows to
the head, and his hands were
bound so tightly that a sheriff’s
deputy had difficulty cutting
him free, Rerucha said.

Shepard’s blood-caked face
had been partially washed
clean by tears; he died five
days later. V

BY DONALD R. EGGERT

he National Gay and
I Lesbian Task Force, along
with the Federation of
Statewide ‘LGBT Political
Organizations, has launched an
ambitious national campaign to
co-ordinate regional efforts at
creating community and achiev-
ing equality.
Announced at NGLTF’s
eleventh annual political confer-
ence in early November, the
“Equality Begins At Home” cam-
paign is scheduled for March
21-27, 1999. During that week,
statewide groups such as Vermont
‘Coalition for Lesbian and Gay
Rights (VCLGR) will host lobby
days, cultural events, visibility
actions, and political gatherings
in state capitals and other regions.
The goal of the campaign is
threefold. First, organizers seek
to “strengthen and unite lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender
communities and promote equali-
ty at the state level.” Second, by
planning events during the same
week in all 50 states and territo-
ries, Equality Begins at Home
will draw national attention to the
efforts of state organizers to pass
pro-gay legislation at home.

' Third, organizers will synchro-

nize efforts among state organiz-
ers to develop actions and strate-
gies unique to their regions.

To help fund this first-ever
coordinated effort among
statewide LGBT political organi-
zations, NGLTF will award mem-
ber organizations in the
Federation $5,000 grants to plan
and implement Equality Begins
at Home events in their states or
territories.

ElIualitve!Ii,ns ttin

 

W

   
   

1'

Kerry Lobel, Executive Director of NGLT F, ofliciated the Equality

emont

Begins At Home kick-ofl rally at Creating Change in Pittsburgh.

The Vermont Coalition for
Lesbian and Gay Rights was
invited to become a member of
the Federation’ of LGBT
Statewide Political Organizations
last year. Virginia 'Renfrew,
Co-Liaison to" VCLGR, plans to
host a meeting of representatives
from major LGBT Vermont orga-

‘nizations in early December.
Community leaders will discuss
how the $5,000 grant should be
spent. “We’re still in the planning
stages right now, but I envision
that the week will include a series

‘of events both in Montpelier and
around the state,” said Renfrew.
“We want to try and bring.every-
one in our community together
including youth, the elderly and
transgendered Vermonters.”

Paula ‘ Ettelbrick, the
Legislative Director for the’
Empire State Pride Agenda in
New York, was named National
Coordinator ofEquality Begins at
Home. She believes that when the

national focus shifts to Vennont’s
fight for same-gender civil‘ mar-
riage this winter and spring,
Equality Begins at Home could
“help build support systems
across state lines” for groups
such as VCLGR and the Vermont
Freedom To Marry Task Force.

NGLTF and other national gay
rights groups assisted local
same-gender marriage advocates
with additional funding and
on-the-gro_und field organizers in
response to a flood of resources
from right-wing anti-gay extrem-
ist groups during the -recent
Defense of Marriage Act referen-
da in Alaska and Hawaii.

The date of the first Equality
Begins at Home planning meet-
ing was undetermined at press
time. Those interested in attend-
ing or helping to organize
Vermont’s contribution to the
campaign should contact Virginia
Renfrew at (802)’496-4333 or
renfrew@sover.net. V