I have only this to say about some of the controversial issues that are swirling around the horror in Orlando: Whether you are gay or straight or Democrat or Republican or you consider yourself an advocate of gun rights or an advocate of gun control, please, please listen to each other.
Please, take the temperature down and care for each other. We need to be one community that all cares together and actually wants to unite to heal. Let’s talk to each other, reason with each other. Let us unite and listen with the goal of actually doing something to help.
Bangor is the city where Charlie Howard was beaten and kicked, then tossed off the State Street Bridge, left to drown in the Kenduskeag Stream.
Stephen King, in his novel “It,” writes so much about our city. Some say it is just a horror novel, but the biggest horror in his book is what happened to Charlie Howard. The killing of Charlie Howard three decades ago is a dark stain on our city — a stain we must never let ourselves forget.
King’s “It” reminds us of that stain, but what his book is most about is that, sometimes, the people who are left out, the people who are disenfranchised, the people who are vulnerable, the people who are compassionate all unite and work and strive for justice and kindness in our world.
As the plaque remembering Charlie Howard states, “May we, the citizens of Bangor, continue to change the world around us until hatred becomes peacemaking and ignorance becomes understanding.”
It is particularly incumbent on those of us who are straight to go out of our way to engage, not merely contribute money but engage and participate and establish friendships in organizations such as the Eastern Maine AIDS Network and EqualityMaine and to build friendships with the LGBTQ community that so enriches our city.
Back in a time when being gay was perceived as a dark secret, a horror, I learned that Oscar Wilde apparently was gay. I hinted at this taboo topic with my father. My father’s assessment of Wilde was simply that he was a great writer and a great speaker and was, therefore, a great Irishman.
When Wilde came to the U.S. on a speaking tour, he met many celebrities. One was Walt Whitman. Wilde returned home claiming, “the kiss of Walt Whitman is still on my lips.”
Given the apparent motive for the Orlando horror, it is particularly right that we accept and — more than that — celebrate people for who they are and their right to live as they are.
Some say Whitman is America’s greatest poet. Whitman loved our country and celebrated America.
In this dark moment after Orlando, it is right to be horrified. It is understandable, particularly for members of the LGBTQ community, to be fearful. We must face and understand those feelings and yet, in Whitman’s America, we cannot let someone so small, someone so petty and so vile as the Orlando killer take from us our strength in joyfulness.
As Whitman wrote:
“O to make the most jubilant song!
Full of music — full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!”
“…To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on!
To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports,
A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)
A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys.”
Let us all unite in gay pride and unite in the goal that we must work together and do our part for peacemaking and understanding.
Sean Faircloth is chair of the Bangor City Council. This OpEd is adapted from remarks he delivered at a vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting on June 13 on the steps of Bangor City Hall. This week is Bangor Pride Week.