From: buckmr@rpi.edu (Ron Buckmire)
Subject: AP: Openly Gay Vermont Legislator Dies of AIDS
Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1993 18:16:44 EST
X-Received: by usenet.pa.dec.com; id AA03433; Sat, 9 Jan 93 15:16:48 -0800
X-Received: by inet-gw-1.pa.dec.com; id AA09003; Sat, 9 Jan 93 15:16:45 -0800
X-Received: from localhost (marcus.its.rpi.edu) by rpi.edu (4.1/SMHUB41);
	id AA18058; Sat, 9 Jan 93 18:16:42 EST for soc.motss.usenet@decwrl.dec.com
X-Received: by localhost (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/AIXV3-SUB16) via SMTP;
	id AA33815; Sat, 9 Jan 1993 18:16:44 -0500 for bisexu-l@brownvm.brown.edu
X-To: soc.motss.usenet
X-Cc: qn@queernet.org, alt.politics.homosexuality.usenet


From: Jason Lin <71043.1570@CompuServe.COM>

                   
     MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- Ron Squires, an openly gay member of the
Vermont Legislature and campaigner for the state's gay rights law,
died Friday from complications of AIDS. He was 41.  
   Squires' family was with him when he died from viral meningitis,
an illness associated with AIDS, said Barbara Gentry, a spokeswoman
at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital in Brattleboro, about 115 miles
southeast of Montpelier.  
   Squires, a Democrat, was sworn in Wednesday to his second term in
a ceremony at the hospital. House Speaker Ralph Wright and House
Clerk Robert Picher attended the swearing-in after the Legislature's
formal Statehouse ceremonies.  
   The House had amended its rules to allow the hospital ceremony.  
   On Friday, the Statehouse flag was lowered to half-staff in
Squires' honor.  
   Squires worked in the last legislative session to win approval of
a civil rights law protecting homosexuals from discrimination on the
basis of their sexual orientation, making Vermont the sixth state in
the nation to extend such protections to gays and lesbians.  
   "If Ron did anything to leave behind for us, he made it OK for us
to do the right thing," Wright said. "There's got to be members of
this House who wondered up to this time whether supporting gay rights
was right and proper. Ron showed it was right and proper."  
   Squires was vice chairman of the House Government Operations
Committee in the last session and Thursday was appointed chairman for
the new two-year session. He also served five years on the Democratic
National Committee and was leader of the Vermont delegation to the
Democratic National Convention in 1988.  
   Squires had not disclosed that he carried the AIDS virus until
Wednesday. Anne Rider, Windham County Democratic chairwoman, said he
had planned to reveal he had AIDS but had not decided when to make
the announcement.  
   Squires, who lived outside Brattleboro in the town of Guilford,
was hospitalized in November with pneumonia, another of the
complications of AIDS. He re-entered the hospital on Sunday with
seizures and viral meningitis, his mother said.  
   Funeral arrangements had not been completed late Friday.  


   
---
RON BUCKMIRE, 11 Colvin Circle, Troy, NY 12180-3735. "See YOU in D.C. 4/25/93"
vox:(518)-276-8910 fax:(518)-276-6920 buckmr@rpi.edu buckmr@rpitsmts.bitnet
Feminism "...encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children,
practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians." -- Pat Robertson.
Xref: sparky alt.politics.homosexuality:9273 talk.religion.misc:25715 alt.rush-limbaugh:13506