My name is Jeanette Redicker. I live in Ft. Fairfield. My husband and I have been married 32 years.
Paul: I had just come home from my second hitch in Vietnam and there she was -- tall, red head, beautiful and it didn't take me long to say this is for me. We weren't always so… gay friendly, user friendly -- whatever you want to call it. I certainly wasn't. I needed a lot of work.
We went to see a priest because we had nobody to talk to. We didn't know anybody to talk to and I was sitting there telling him that we had just found our daughter was gay. There was a lot of emotions at the time, and I will never forget the answer that he told me. She is the same person that you loved yesterday. That was it. We didn't understand anything of it. We hadn't been around; we didn't even grow up in an era where it was discussed.
Gay people are just people and I hate to see this labeling and they want to put them on this side and we're on this side. They are just people.
My daughter, my oldest daughter, my gay daughter grew up in Maine. That's where she should be able to be married. To see my daughter Michelle marry her partner that she loves will be fantastic and all of our family feels the same way. We'll be there. We'll be there to love her and give her the same love that we give Nicky and her husband.
