To tell the tale Can the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence provide ammunition that past gay-rights campaigns lacked? BY TONY GIAMPETRUZZI
	One couple’s story Hall Willkie and Tom Craveiro have been coming to Maine nearly every year of the nine years that they have been together. For Willkie, a real estate broker living full-time in Manhattan, Maine is magical: As a boy, his family had a summer house on Mt. Desert Island and his fondest memories are of long, lazy summers as a part-time resident. Willkie says that he’ll be buried in Maine, alongside his mother and sister, both of whom have already passed away. And, until two years ago, Willkie continued an abbreviated annual summer trip to the state. It was that year, 2003, that Willkie, for the first time, felt unwelcome in the state because he is gay. Here is his story: Narrative provided by Mr. Hall Willkie and Mr. Tom Craveiro of their experience at the Greyrock Inn of Northeast Harbor, Maine, in August 2003. Read to the Maine Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, March 24, 2005, by Zachary Heiden, Legal Director, Maine Civil Liberties Union. Distinguished Members of the Judiciary Committee: As you consider amending the Maine Human Rights Act to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation, we hope you will take into account our own very disturbing experience in a Northeast Harbor inn during the summer of 2003. That summer, we returned to Maine as we have for many, many years. I began going to Mount Desert Island in the 1950s, and Mr. Craveiro has accompanied me for the past nine years. When we made plans to return to Northeast Harbor in the summer of 2003, we made reservations at the Greyrock Inn. At that time, we made it very clear that the reservation was for Mr. Craveiro and Mr. Willkie to share a room with one double bed and that we would be traveling with a small dog. We flew to Maine on August 16, 2003. Because of delays caused by the huge electrical blackout over the mid-Atlantic at that time, we arrived later than expected at Bangor Airport. We phoned the Greyrock Inn and they explained how we could get into our room by ourselves in the middle of the night. About 8:30 the next morning, I went to the pantry to bring coffee back to our room. Enroute to the pantry, I met the innkeeper, Alice, and her adult son, Adam. It was Adam who had taken our reservation. I asked if I could take coffee to the room and Alice easily agreed. In the pantry, with a young Russian maid, Alice prepared a tray. She asked the maid to please find a sugar bowl. I said that was not necessary as I took only milk in my coffee. Alice said, "But what about your wife, does she take sugar?" I responded, "It’s okay, my partner, Tom, doesn’t take sugar either." She turned to me and said, "But you are in the blue room. There’s only one bed in there!" I responded, "Don’t worry, that’s fine with us." Alice turned her back and said in a very angry voice, "Well, it’s not fine with me." I was so shocked I was speechless. I picked up the tray, said "Thank you," and went to our room. Back in our room, we discussed what had happened and how insulting Alice’s comment was. We were a bit in shock, tired from the long night of travel, and eager for our vacation to begin. We decided to just forget about the incident. But the trouble was just starting. About an hour later, we went out to the terrace for breakfast. Adam came to our table and said, "We have a problem. We see you have a dog and we do not allow dogs." I responded, "I don’t understand that. We told you we had a small dog and you specifically reserved the blue room for us to accommodate the dog." Adam repeated, "Well, we have a problem because we don’t allow dogs. My brother is allergic to pets of any kind." I said, "Adam, this must have something to do with what your mother said to me this morning." Adam asked, "What did my mother say?" I described what had happened in the pantry. Adam’s comment was, "She took it on that way?!" Then he excused himself and went back inside. A few minutes later, Alice came to our table, appearing very angry. She screamed at us, "Why did you tell my son about what I said?!! You are a spiteful man. You are spiteful because you hate women!!!" She was leaning over the table, trying to intimidate me. I said, "Lady, leave me alone." She turned and on her way back into the lobby screamed again so the other guests could hear, "He hates women!!" We sat dumbfounded. Adam came back out on the terrace and said in his normal, polite voice, "You will have to find other accommodations. We could have made some arrangement for your dog with housekeeping, but at this point I don’t think there’s anything we can do." That morning, our stay in Maine seemed spoiled. To have been insulted and thrown out by the innkeepers solely because of our sexual orientation was deeply troubling on many levels. We tried to salvage our vacation, but finding other accommodations was very difficult at the height of the summer season. We shuttled from one hotel to another since there was not one room available for the entirety of our stay. After we left the Greyrock Inn, I called Adam. I calmly told Adam how upset we were about what had happened to us simply because his mother did not want two men sharing a bed in her inn. Adam listened quietly and then he hung up on me. I phoned Adam right back and got his voice mail. I said, "Adam, I cannot believe that after all that has happened you would hang up on me. I do not know what the laws are in Maine, but I will find out. I do not know what remedies are available to me, but I will pursue them." Once home, we sought help for fighting the discrimination we had encountered in Maine. We discovered that Maine, unlike many other states, does not have a law governing public accommodations that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. I would like to return to Maine someday. It has been a rich part of our family history for many years. My mother and sister are buried in Seal Harbor, a place of special importance to us. But we cannot now return there confident that certain innkeepers will not discriminate against us because of our sexual orientation. We hope that you will take legislative action to let them know, and to reassure us that this will no longer be tolerated in Maine. _TG

Back in 2000, when I was the media director for Yes on 6, the last ballot initiative seeking to secure equal rights for gays and lesbians, the climate in the campaign war room was one of cautious confidence.

We knew that our message had to be as precise as a laser beam, aimed at shattering not preconceived notions about gays and lesbians, but about what rights were already afforded the gay community.

The mantra was simple: "Right now, in Maine, you can be fired for being gay or lesbian. Even if your boss only thinks that you are." We even trotted out then–Attorney General Andrew Ketterer to substantiate the claim.

While many in the gay community were bitching and moaning about the fact that we had secured a tacit thumbs up from the Catholic Church, an endorsement that we felt would embolden some who might otherwise not support the measure, many of us were trying desperately to find people who would tell their stories of discrimination.

Real-life stories were crucial — and still are — because, while the public was being fed poll numbers that suggested that we would win by a whopping margin of nearly 30 points based on whether voters supported gay rights, we were privy to other poll numbers that made us itch then, and should make current campaigners chafe like hell now. 

The same poll that suggested that people supported equal rights for gays also showed that 77 percent of the voters polled already thought that Maine had a law that protected gays and lesbians from discrimination. Our message had to be clear and concise, not emotional or scattered: it’s still legal to discriminate here, regardless of how many cities and towns have their own ordinances, regardless of the fact that domestic partners can get health benefits, and regardless of the fact that crimes can be prosecuted based on hate. None of those allowances amounted then or now to protection from bias.

The albatross around our neck at the time was that all we had was anecdotal proof, and the zealots opposing us knew that we were having trouble finding people to tell their real-life stories, so all they had to do was sit back. It was a presidential election year, so there was no need to spend valuable resources convincing people to show at the polls. What was crucial was a cohesive message and proof to back it up, but then, as now, anyone who came forward with stories of discrimination faced even further humiliation, bias, or even violence because there is no law to protect them.

In 2005, these stories are more important than ever considering that, unlike in 2000, it is assumed that campaigners have the Herculean task of not only getting people to vote no (the ballot question will ask voters if they want to repeal the recently passed gay-rights legislation), but to also simply get supporters to the polls in the first place. The only other things to vote on will be municipal elections and a boring bond question, so the theory is that only motivated parties will show up to vote in large numbers.

Steve Wessler, the director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence at the University of Southern Maine, knows this and that’s why he has spearheaded an ambitious project soliciting claims of discrimination from people across the state. His goal is to produce a comprehensive report prior to the November referendum to prove that discrimination is alive and well — and legal — in Maine.

"I’ve become particularly disturbed over the past several years to see, in all the referenda and legislative fights over the past two decades, that no one has tried to bring together a significant amount of information to substantiate the existence of discrimination against people in the GLBT community," says Wessler.

"And I think that has been a huge problem. In debates, I hear people trying to figure out how they are going to vote and what we know is that people don’t think that it’s fair to discriminate against [GLBT] people, but they’re not convinced that discrimination is a problem. That’s the gap that we’re trying to fill. We’re trying to find out how pervasive it is."

So far, Wessler says that he and his team are interviewing as many as six or seven people a week, some who have a legitimate basis for remedy based on the law that is going to a vote, and some who don’t. He says that, either way, anyone who even believes they may have suffered bias in housing, education, employment, or public accommodation must contact the Center for what would be a confidential interview.

"I think the people of Maine have certainly demonstrated time and time again that they think about the way that they are going to vote, so what we need to do is provide voters with information," says Wessler, adding that he is hoping for a much greater pool of stories from which to cull a report.

"I believe this will be extremely important for voters, but it will only result in a report if people call us about their experiences. If we don’t have the data to release a report, I think it would be a tremendous shame."

Wessler says that because he is certain that bias is rampant, he’s also convinced people are still afraid there will be repercussions for talking about their travails.

"A high percentage of the people who are calling us would have a case and a right to go to court. What we’re seeing is that people are definitely being discriminated against," says Wessler. "But it’s hard to talk about. People don’t want to bring up these things a lot of the time — the loss of an apartment, the loss of finances. I mean, we’ve talked to people who say the only way they’ve been able to keep their jobs is to tell their employers that they have a partner of the opposite sex. What a horrible way to live your life."

Wessler asserts that in Maine, as well as around this country, there is an increasing number of people who simply don’t believe discrimination exists or that gays and lesbians are already protected by current law.

"We need to show people what’s happening, that discrimination really is a problem," he says. "We know this because people who have called us have actually just been so grateful just to have someone here to listen to their story."

For more information about how you can be a part of the study, contact the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence, or have your friends contact the Center, by emailing glbtproject@preventinghate.org or calling 207.780.4378. All interviews are voluntary and confidential. No names or identifying information will be in the documents or materials resulting from the study.

Could this study be the difference between past losses for gay-rights supporters and a win in November. Wessler hopes he at least gets a chance to find out.

Tony Giampetruzzi can be reached at tony@giampetruzzi.com