BANGOR – One week after a heated public hearing on the issue, the City Council on Monday approved a gay rights ordinance similar to one rejected last year by Maine voters.

The council, in an 8-1 vote, adopted the measure that will prohibit discrimination in the city based on sexual orientation in the areas of housing, employment, education, credit applications and public accommodations.

“Equal rights and equal dignity are not special rights. They are basic American values,” said Councilor Joe Baldacci, who with Councilor Judy Vardamis sponsored the ordinance. Its passage prompted applause from about two dozen supporters at the Monday night meeting.

Last week, supporters and opponents alike turned out for a three-hour public hearing on the matter which also prompted a slew of letters to City Hall during the past week.

Many in favor argued the protections were necessary and long overdue in a city needing to send a message after the 1984 death of 23-year-old Charlie Howard, a homosexual man thrown off a downtown bridge by three local teen-agers.

“I find it troubling that a man had to die in Bangor … because of his sexual orientation,” said an obviously agitated Councilor Gerry Palmer. “There was no reason for that young man to die.”

Opponents of the measure have voiced both religious and procedural objections to the ordinance, which they contend is an unnatural and unneeded extension of the Maine Human Rights Act, whose fate should ultimately be decided by voters.

The Bangor ordinance is modeled closely on the state law, which does not apply to sexual orientation but prohibits discrimination based on age, disability, gender, race or religion.

On Monday, Councilor Nichi Farnham, the lone dissenter on the council said that adding another group to the list wrongly perpetuated divisions in the city population.

“Singling people out is against my upbringing.” Farnham said. “This singles out people during a time when we need to come together as a group.”

The citywide law, which includes an exemption for religious organizations, would allow victims to sue violators with no city-imposed limits on financial damages.

While Maine voters have been unpredictable – once upholding, once repealing and once rejecting statewide gay rights proposals -Bangor voters have been solid in their support, most recently voting 7,278 to 6,644 in favor of last year’s Question 6, which would have included sexual orientation in the Maine Human Rights Act.

Despite the city’s past backing of the statewide initiatives, the Rev. Dr. Jerry Mick, pastor of Bangor Baptist Church, said Monday that he believed a planned effort to repeal the local ordinance could prove successful.

Mick, in anticipation of the council’s vote, said that church officials would first look to gain support from community evangelical leaders before launching a petition drive to put the matter out to referendum.

“It’s either that or we just lay down and let them do this,” Mick said of the possibility of a citywide vote. “If we lose, we’d like to lose doing everything we possibly could.

“There are a lot of people who think this is wrong,” he said.

If Bangor’s ordinance were challenged, it would not be the first.

In 1992, voters in Portland overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to repeal that city’s gay-rights law, while Lewiston voters just as convincingly overturned that city’s ordinance one year later.

With its Monday vote, Bangor became the 11th community in the state to adopt a local gay rights ordinance.