Bangor walk celebrates diversity
Marchers honor drowned gay man

BANGOR - Fern Stearns is a strong advocate for gay and lesbian rights, even lobbying to have a newspaper run engagement announcements for them as is done for heterosexual couples.

But it wasn't very long ago that she couldn't even accept her own son's homosexuality. As a Christian 10 years ago, Stearns had difficulty with her son's revelation and chose to deny and hide from it, and sought answers in her church.

On one of those church visits she wondered why her son could be gay. Then, in a watershed moment, the answer came to her: Why not?

"It just made sense to me - why not," Stearns said.

On Father's Day, Stearns' and her husband's thoughts were on their son, who lives in Augusta, as the couple walked as part of the annual Walk With the Ones You Love march held in Bangor and communities across the state.

They were among nearly 50 people who turned out to walk along the streets of Bangor's downtown.

The walk included a stop along the Kenduskeag Stream where on July 7, 1984, Charlie Howard, a gay man, was thrown from a bridge because of his sexual orientation. He drowned.

At the bridge on State Street, the gathering stopped, held a brief moment of silence and dropped carnations into the water in remembrance of Howard.

Dan Williams, who organized this year's walk, said a memorial for Howard is planned and could be inplace in three or four years. A foundation has been set up to raise money for the memorial and for scholarships for people who promote diversity.

And diversity is what it was all about. "You can't put a face on what it looks like to be gay and you can't associate just certain behaviors and actions with what it is to be gay. Everybody's different," said Jennifer Calder, who walked hand-in-hand with her partner Jennifer Chiarell.

"Because of walks like this, people are seeing that we all have so much in common," Calder said.

But advocates of diversity said that acceptance needs to go a step further.

"Why can't we all be friends?" Calder said. "Why do we have to just tolerate each other?"