Comments for Sheets and Sanders

Editor:

I saw and was quite unsettled by the article by Morgan Sheets in your December issue.

[Morgan,] if the truth be known, BiNet USA has been having a lot of trouble with inclusion on the HRC front and I was disturbed by the lack of mention to trans and bi issues in your article. Not because I think HRC is doing anything that is truly inclusive in deed, but because I know you are aware that gay and lesbian are not the only issues at hand and was surprised you did not take care to be inclusive in your language.

HRC has been paying more lip service than anything to being inclusive. Bend your ear to the HRC pavement for me and find out if I am just not on target with this.

In a recent 'supportive' letter on trans issues, HRC called an f to m trans person a man. In the whole discussion on the millennium march, HRC has not been cooperative, nor have they been in contact with many of the people they claimed were supporting their march.

Even though HRC has signed on to be an ally to BiNet USA, they did not sign on to our rebuttle ad for the gay 'conversion' ads the religious right has been running.

This is enough to make me leery. More has gone on that has put me off completely.

I just ask that you keep an ear to the ground and hope, as a bi Vermonter, I can rest assured that there is a Vermonter looking out for my interests as well while you are down there.

It [also] concerns me greatly that Skeeter Sanders is not checking his statistics with his glorious rants against the machine.

Though I think it is good that SOMEONE is addressing the issue at the root of all of this "right to marriage" struggle, whether marriage itself is a lesser of two evils or not, I would urge you to check your authors when they submit articles with supposed "statistics" in them. Where did he find the stat on violence being higher in married couples then in others? I had addressed this very question to him before he submitted the article and he said he really didn't remember, but would check.

And remember, Skeeter, we all have a right to build our lives as we wish, so if you propose that we abandon same sex marriage, give us a better alternative. Give generously and give details!

Kim Ward
BiNet VT, BiNet USA