Gay Today: Letters to the Editor

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Gay Today

Lobbyists in Vermont Ask for Help

As we celebrate the historic Vermont Supreme Court decision on December and contemplate the significance of that decision for gay and lesbian civil rights in Vermont, I would like to introduce you to the sister organization to the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, the Vermont Freedom to Marry Action Committee.

Unlike the Task Force, which was established as a charitable non-profit Organization dedicated to public education of Vermonters on the issue of marriage for same sex couples, the Action Committee was formed with just one major purpose in mind: to lobby the Vermont legislature, if and when that became necessary, in order to secure equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian citizens.

Until now, virtually all of our community's limited financial resources have been dedicated to the Task Force's public education efforts.

Now, however, the Vermont Supreme Court has asked the Vermont legislature either to put gay and lesbian couples on an equal footing with heterosexual couples by fully including gays and lesbians in the current marriage laws, or to write some sort of alternate, separate-but-supposedly-equal law for gays and lesbians (which everyone is currently calling "domestic partnership").

Although domestic partnership sounds good, it's not "equal" to marriage. First, it won't necessarily allow access to all the benefits which third parties give based on marriage, such as employer health insurance, which many times covers only "spouses."

Second, it won't be transferable to other states if the couple moves or travels out of Vermont.

Third, it won't allow the couple to try to obtain the hundreds of federal benefits given to married couples, such as social security spousal benefits and immigration rights.

And in addition to all these practical limitations, domestic partnership symbolically is simply "less" than full "marriage" -- it really is "separate, which is unconstitutional and won't satisfy the Supreme Court's requirements that gay couples be given the "same" rights as other married couples.

We now need to focus our energies and our resources to fight the legislative battles ahead. We need to educate the legislature about this issue, and to do so, the Action Committee NEEDS YOUR HELP! We need your energy and time; we need letters and telephone calls to your legislators; most of all, we need your MONEY!!

The battles in the legislature will be long and costly, and we need to develop and implement a comprehensive, savvy strategy to approach this issue at the State House. We need to pay for professional lobbyists. We need to organize and galvanize our grass roots supporters. We need to prepare and pay for a media relations campaign. We need legal expertise to draft and critique proposed bills.

All of this takes money, and we desperately need your support if we are to convince the legislature that nothing short of amending the marriage laws will satisfy the Supreme Court's mandate that gay and lesbian couples are to be given full equality under our laws.

The legislature convenes on January 4, so we need your help, and your donations, immediately. Here's what you can do:

1. Send us your check, addressed to VFMAC, P.O. Box 1038, Middlebury, VT 05753
2. Forward this email to any and all supporters you can think of.
3. Send us the names and addresses of potential supporters, so we can contact them.
4. Call or write your legislators and Governor Dean (you can find out who your legislators are by calling the statehouse at (800)322-5616 or by visiting www.state.vt.us. Thank you, very much.

Sincerely,
Susan M. Murray
Chair, Vermont Freedom to Marry Action Committee, Inc.
vfmac@sover.net

From a Yugoslavian Flower of the Earth

First of all I'd like to wish you a happy brand new, hip-hip-hooray, disco 2000 New Year, and a Merry Christmas holidays, regardless of which calendar you use, Catholic or Orthodox—I have made an eclectic fusion, and I celebrate both, even though I am not a Christian. Furthermore, I wish you realization of all your wishes, or realization of Those you have truly wished, or those that are really good for you— Be careful what you wish, cause it might come true—an American saying teaches us. I wish you the state of inner freedom the wishes, the state of 'empty fullness' as the Buddhists call it, and, as Alanis Morissette says to be good even if you do nothing. Be happy just for you are alive! Choose 'to be' between Fromm's 'to be or to have' and be pleased. "May the force be with you." And don't forget to keep on smiling in the year 2000. Your smiling faces are the most beautiful flowers of the Earth!

Related Stories from the GayToday Archive:
Vermont Supreme Court: Gay & Lesbian Couples Equal

Serb & U.S. Activists Meet On-Line

Queer Blood: The Secret AIDS Genocide Plot

Related Sites:
Gay Marriage: The Arguements and Motives
The AIDS Conspiracy
GayToday does not endorse related sites.

Love,
Dusan Maljkovic
Yugoslavia's Campaign Against Homophobia

Research on AIDS Origins
in the New Century

Happy Holidays and best wishes to all you AIDS researchers seriously concerned with the Origin of AIDS. Hooper's book The River was discussed in today's (23 Dec.) Los Angeles Times, by staff writer Marlene Cimons. She quotes Hooper as saying, "There is no concrete evidence, as yet, to prove the [AIDS is man-made] theory, even if the anecdotal and circumstantial evidence is highly persuasive. What I hope is that the scientific establishment, and in particular its AIDS researchers -- many of whom have, until now, shown an unseemly desire to brush the theory under the carpet -- will now be encouraged to initiate an independent investigation."

Dr. Alan Cantwell has written several books promoting his theory that AIDS is a man-made disease

So, take heart, and in the New Millennium continue your investigations to uncover the truth about the origin of this dastardly disease. And don't be disheartened by those braindead scientists who don't think the origin of AIDS is important!!!

Alan Cantwell MD