Community Compass
Community Compass is a service of OITM. GLBT organizations from around the state are invited to provide brief — 200 words or less — descriptions of recent or upcoming activities and events. Send your submissions to us by email by the 15th of the month.
Outright
MasQUEERadE
Join tons of other young people who
are under age 22 at the biggest costume party of the year. It's the 5th
annual MasQUEERadE hosted by your scary hosts Outright Vermont on Saturday,
October 22nd from 7-10pm at 242 Main St. in Burlington. Only $5 at the
door to dance to the crazy be>>ats of the goulish DJ Llu. Dress
to impress, we have costume contests & prizes gay-lor! Questions?
Call 802-865-9677 or visit our website at www.outrightvt.org
PRIDE in Vermont Sailing
Come Sail Away! The PRIDE Committee
is up and meeting and wants to thank YOU for making P.RI.D.E. 2005 smooth
sailing!
Now, come aboard and help us set our
course for P.R.I.D.E. 2006! Loved marching in the parade? Want to dip
your feet in Lake Champlain next year? Have a fantastic idea that just
needs to happen? Come sail away with us on October 9 at 135 Pearl, from
5-8pm. We're looking for your ideas, interests, and input for next year,
and we need YOU!
Rutland
Vistas Second Community Meeting
Rutland Vistas, a new group
in the greater Rutland Area for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender
and questioning community will hold its second meeting on Sunday October
16 at 5:30 pm at Grace Congregational Church (8 Court St.) in Rutland.
The aim of the group is to nurture
the LGBT Community in the greater Rutland Area through social, recreational
and education activities. The goal of the group is to be inclusive of
all and to expand on other existing LGBT organizations in the area. This
meeting will include a potluck, discussion, and socializing. Please bring
a main dish to share and a place setting. This is an important meeting
where the goals and the direction of the group will be charted. Your input
is very important to us!
Contact David at 802-746-8142 or email
Rip Jackson at arborcelt@aol.com
VT Law School: Serving with Pride
The Vermont Law School Alliance presents
SERVING WITH PRIDE: Gays in the Military on October 6-7, 2005 from 9am
-3:30pm.
The schedule (with a few
unconfirmed speakers) begins the evening before with a showing of Serving
in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story at 7 pm.
On Oct. 6 a kick-off dinner will be
held in the Yates Common Room. The Alliance will present its annual Simon
Pearce Award to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. Bernie Sanders
will offer remarks (unconfirmed).
The conference continues
Oct. 7, 2005 at 9 am with opening remarks from President and Dean Jeff
Shields, followed by Evelyn Monahan's talk, A History of Gays in the
Military. The Department of Defense has been invited to send a representative
to speak at 10:30 (an alternate speaker has been enlisted in the event
no DoD representative arrives, as we have had no response from the agency)
on The Current Policy and Implementation.
At 11:45, Sharon Alexander, Esq.,
will discuss Constitutional Challenges to DA/DT. Sharon Alexander is a
former Army Captain and currently serves as SLDN's Deputy Director for
Policy, specializing in legislation and outreach.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense
Network (SLDN) recently filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the
constitutionality of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy on behalf of thirteen
servicemembers who were discharged as a result of their sexual orientation.
Cook v. Rumsfeld is currently before the United States District
Court for the District of Massachusetts.
At 1 pm, Col. Grethe Cammermeyer,
presents Breaking the Silence. Col. Cammermeyer is the highest-ranking
military official to challenge the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.
The final presentation
will be held at 2:15, with Professor Kent Greenfield and Walter Galpin,
Esq., Debating the Solomon Amendment.
Prof. Kent Greenfield is the founder and President of Forum for Academic
and Institutional Rights (FAIR). FAIR filed a lawsuit challenging the
Solomon Amendment on behalf of law schools. The Solomon Amendment requires
law schools to allow Judge Advocate General recruiters on campus in violation
of the schools' non-discrimination policies or face the loss of federal
funding. FAIR v. Rumsfeld will be heard by the Supreme Court
on Dec. 5, 2005. Attorney Gerald Walpin, a partner at Katten Muchin Zavis
& Rosenman, a former JAG attorney and a senior litigator for the Federalist
society, will be arguing on behalf of the government.
Kopkind Harvest Late Brunch
Fresh from Texas, where war and its
domestic blowback, from the Abu Ghraib scandal to the Gold Star Mothers'
revolt to the hurricane exiles' cry, have suddenly, strikingly converged,
journalist JoAnn Wypijewski will speak at Kopkind's annual harvest fundraiser
on Sunday, October 9, at 2 pm at the Organ Barn at Guilford.
For the past year Wypijewski has been
on assignment for Harper's Magazine covering the trials of US
soldiers charged with torture at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. What for a brief
time captivated public attention with photographs of abuse and sexual
humiliation, the Abu Ghraib scandal has since been forgotten as crisis
spreads abroad and at home: death, destruction, disaster and government
failure. As one of the few reporters, and the only magazine journalist,
in the country to have attended all of the major trials in the case, Wypijewski
has observed in the courtroom drama and the environs of Fort Hood, Texas,
the story you haven't heard so far.
Wypijewski is a regular columnist
for Mother Jones magazine, and a frequent contributor to CounterPunch
and The Nation. Her story on the Matthew Shepard case, "A Boy's Life,"
won the GLAAD Media Award for best magazine article of 1999.
Kopkind was launched seven years
ago as a living memorial to the late Guilford resident and journalist
Andrew Kopkind, who wrote on politics and culture with a matchless style
and depth for national and international publications until his death,
in 1994. The project brings together journalists and activists.
The Harvest Late Brunch ($25 adults,
$10 children) on Sunday caps a weekend of events on the theme of the conscience
of soldiers and society in wartime. On Saturday, Kopkind will also present
the Vermont premiere of a stunning new documentary Sir! No Sir!,
a film by David Zeiger on the Vietnam-era GI antiwar movement. That will
take place on October 8, at 6pm, at the Hooker-Dunham Theater, 139 Main
Street in Brattleboro; suggested donation, $10.
For more information call 802.254.4859,
or email stonewal@sover.net