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Currently serving as Interim Executive Director at the Lund Family Center in Burlington, State Representative and gay rights activist Bill Lippert is surrounded by women: teen mothers and expectant parents, female volunteers and staff. In an office of a building combining the facilities of a clinic with the comforts of a second home, Bill has become a minority within a minority, taking meetings in rooms graced with photos of mothers and infants, and dodging stuffed animals on his way out the door. "I think it's good modeling to be a gay man providing leadership in a setting that traditionally hasn't had men," he says, smiling.
Indeed Bill Lippert has spent years challenging the status quo, and becoming involved in not only the struggle for gay rights, but for human rights as well. " If we really want to build a powerful coalition to end [GLBT] oppression," Bill says, "we need to think about what's happening to other people. There is a linkage between what happens to us and what happens to people of color, people with disabilities, poor women . . . . These oppressions interact with each other." When Bill Lippert came out in 1972, and later that year came to Vermont from Pennsylvania, "there was no organization in the state for openly gay people." Consequently, Bill helped establish and sustain the first gay men's support group in Vermont. This endeavor also spawned other efforts, such as the first gay dances, and the first political organization for gay people in the state. "We here in Vermont have made tremendous strides," says Bill fervently. "[These strides] are the result of many risks by gay and lesbian people . . . it didn't just happen!"
For many years Bill Lippert worked as a psychotherapist in Vermont while simultaneously lobbying for the gay rights bill and helping to establish gay and lesbian organizations. He has been working with non-profit organizations extensively for years, including a collaboration with others eight years ago to create Outright Vermont. The group saw Vermont youth battling with the same depression and alienation that they had felt as young people, and thus felt there was a great need for an organization like Outright. In 1985 Bill was hired as Executive Director of the Counseling Services of Addison County, making him one of the first openly gay people to head a mental health organization in the state of Vermont.
When appointed to the Vermont Legislature a few years ago, Bill decided to step back from the many organizations he was involved in, including Vermont CARES, to focus more on his role as State Representative for the town of Hinesburg. Before Representative Steve Howard was appointed, Bill was the only openly gay member of the Legislature. As a ranking member of the judiciary committee, Bill has used this position to build relationships as a gay man with both Republicans and Democrats on the committee. "I wanted to be on the judiciary committee because I knew that any law affecting our community was going to have to go through the judiciary committee, and I wanted to be right where I could be an influence on what happened." So far during his term he has seen the bill to make adoption by gays illegal voted down unanimously. He is certain that the bill to make gay marriage illegal will never go anywhere either.
Bill enjoys being an openly gay legislator very much because he gets to influence his fellow legislators, he gets to be there and be visible, and he gets to vote. As one of the more than 30 gay and lesbian elected officials from across the country invited to the White House a few years ago, Bill was able to meet with many of the Clinton Administration's top cabinet members. Even though controversy ensued surrounding the rubber gloves worn by some of the White House staff, Bill says the event was "a very significant step."
When asked what he believes to be the most pressing issue facing our GLBT community today, Bill maintains that there is a definite need to eliminate homophobia broadly. He also insists that the way to end discrimination of anyone is to find ways to get to know different types of people, and find some way to "get them in our lives." "I think one of the most realistic first steps [to ending discrimination] is to ask yourself where the group you're wanting to look at is in your life, and then ask yourself ÎHow can I seek out building some personal friendships?'"
Bill also believes that we are often hypercritical in our GLBT community, and that most likely because of our treatment by the rest of society we tend to easily turn on each other. "We shouldn't let ourselves become agents of the society's oppression of us, and have us do the damage to each other."
Because he is currently working for an establishment with most of its clientele in their early to mid teens, Bill takes a moment to reflect on the importance of nurturing the youth in our society, particularly in the GLBT community. "I think the GLBT young people of our state are our community's children. For those of us who don't have our own children, we can actually make a difference in the next several generations by making sure that the young people growing up today are treated as well as possible."
Taking a minute to talk about his own family, Bill describes an extremely supportive
environment where he and his partner are always welcome. He recounts how his
mother recently gave an interview about the Lippert family (complete with a
retired United Methodist minister, two gay brothers and two very supportive
siblings) to a local Harrisburg, Pennsylvania paper. "I love to watch my
mother's Îcoming-out' process too," he grins. " I'd like to believe
that we can eliminate homophobia in my lifetime." Bill says, and with more
individual efforts such as his, this becomes all the more realistic.
