CHARLIE HOWARD, 20 YEARS

Twenty years after Charlie Howard was murdered in Bangor for being gay, Maine citizens can look back on numerous debates about what discrimination means, what sorts of rights are special and whether this is a place prone to committing violent acts against certain groups because they are unlike the majority. Through the several failed bills and referendums that would add “sexual orientation” to the state’s human rights act, through disagreement over hate-crimes legislation and most recently in debate over same-sex marriage laws, a cultural change in Maine has become clear.

Being gay is now not usually an invitation to harassment; letting private lives remain private is more a practice than an ideal. And to the surprise of those who were sure perdition would arrive the next time someone said the word “tolerance,” Maine is a better place for having reduced its fear of homosexuality. Just how much it has changed and where it has not is the subject this weekend of a conference at the University of Southern Maine. It is called, fittingly, “Charlie Howard 20 Years Later: How Far has Maine Come.”

So, first, why not hold the conference in Bangor? Stephen Wessler, executive director of USM’s Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, points out that though Mr. Howard was killed in Bangor – pushed from a bridge into the Kenduskeag, where he drowned – the crime could have happened anywhere in Maine and the crime itself had an effect on gays and lesbians living all over Maine – or, shortly after, leaving Maine. And the conference is only the beginning of a statewide series of events that include a traveling exhibition marking the last two decades, curriculum material that will be available to schools and the conference sponsors have planned community conversations throughout Maine. In addition, Mr. Howard was killed in July 1984; events in Bangor will mark his death this summer.

Howard Solomon, scholar-in-residence at USM’s Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity, points out that while Portland currently is the center of the gay and lesbian community in Maine, 20 years ago it was Bangor-Orono, where the events around Mr. Howard’s death solidified then exhausted the community here, with many people leaving. Mr. Wessler observed, “Hate crimes have a peculiar capacity to tear communities apart, and to continue and escalate if not stopped.”

In the nation’s cultural change since 1984, 14 states have added sexual-orientation protections to their laws, including all of New England except Maine. Where Maine has changed regarding gays and lesbians and where it has not are fitting topics 20 years after the tragedy in Bangor, positive ways to mark a horrible event that should be remembered.