Stories of Pain and Joy in the Marching Crowd : Demonstration: Deeply personal memories led many to add their voice to the event in Washington.

For every marcher, there was a story.

Although the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators who marched here Sunday shared a common civil rights agenda for gays, lesbians and bisexuals--which served as the underpinning of the event--there were also deeply personal reasons for coming, for making a public statement about being gay.

There were stories of pain and of loss, of joy and of relief, of families who were unthinking, of colleagues who were unknowing and of a church that was unforgiving.

And for every story told, there were hundreds of thousands untold.

Under a cloudless sky with summer-like temperatures, they paraded slowly past the White House toward the Capitol waving signs, singing songs, shouting slogans and wearing T-shirts declaring their pride. But under the symbols, there were the stories.

For Carla Gillard, 30, of Detroit, a black woman who recently left the Army after a dozen years, being gay meant feeling like a hypocrite for having to discipline two lesbian soldiers who got caught--at the same time she was guarding her own secret.

“I was living a lie, and I couldn’t live with that,” she said. “I knew then it was time to get out.”

For her best friend, Cheryl, who turned 35 on Sunday, it meant not being able to tell a colleague at the international computer software firm where she works how she planned to celebrate her birthday because she was afraid someone higher up would find out and she would be fired.

“My friends and family know, but not my co-workers,” said Cheryl, who asked that her last name not be used. “I have enough hassles being a black woman at a company that is predominantly white male. I don’t need another thing to make it difficult.

“I have one good friend at work, but I can’t even tell her,” she added. “People do talk, and she might tell the wrong person. It’s not her I worry about. It’s everyone else. I might get fired. As a black person, there are laws I can use--but as a gay, I don’t have any place to go.”

For Amy Brodigan and Liz Welsh of Boston, who have been together nearly nine years, being gay meant having to remind Welsh’s brother that the invitation to his wedding should include Brodigan.

“My family are all very accepting, but sometimes there are oversights,” said Welsh, 33, a community organizer. “One of my brothers got married two years ago and the invitation came only to me. He called and apologized. He had never told his fiancee about Amy until I asked why she wasn’t invited. It was a subtle thing, but it hurt at the time.”

Brodigan, 33, who works for Grassroots International, a nonprofit international development agency, said Welsh’s brother later called her and assured her that she was welcome and that she was regarded as part of the family.

“He was wonderful, and we both went to the wedding and I sat with the family and was very much included,” she said.

For Brodigan, being gay also meant having to leave an earlier job as a history teacher in a Catholic girls’ high school because she was tired of being closeted at work.

“It was hard because I loved teaching,” she said. “But I felt it was too much of a conflict to have to hide my life. It was frustrating not being able to be open with my students or my colleagues.”

For their friend, Fran Mannocchio, 38, the director of a Boston-area substance abuse program for women, it meant a painful confrontation with her traditional Italian Catholic family when she was in her early 20s.

“They had a family meeting without me and decided my choice had to be them--or my lover,” she said. “And I said: ‘I want both. I can’t make that choice.’

“I’m close to my family, and I’d put off coming out for a long time,” she continued. “There was a lot of hysterics and tears on both parts initially. It took about two years before members of my family wouldn’t leave the room when my partner was there. But eventually we resolved our conflict.”

For Scott Sanders, executive producer at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, being gay meant being “completely comfortable with who I am” after a tortuous road that led to his coming out in 1986.

“Before that, I’d have sooner jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge than have anyone know I was gay,” he said. “I was miserable. On the exterior, I had a sensational life. I had a great career. Great friends. But I was miserable on the inside.”

A year after he came out, he joined the first gay-rights march on Washington.

“To march in front of the White House with a sign was the most cathartic experience of my life, the freest feeling I’ve ever had in my life, and the most powerful,” he said. “I realized then that all the repression had really taken its toll on me. I also realized how ridiculous it is to allow what anybody thinks about you to make you change who you are.

“Being here then showed how much a person can change, and experience personal growth,” he said. “It also made me proud to be part of the beginning of the galvanization of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement. Now, six years later, I wish more people would come out and be comfortable with who they are--and never feel shut out.”

For Lynn Miner, 53, of West Hollywood, who is finance director for the Los Angeles Shanti Foundation, it meant being excommunicated from his beloved Mormon Church, where he had performed years of missionary work.

Miner, who grew up in Utah as part of a large family, said he tried to be heterosexual. He married, had a son--who is now 27--and was very active in his church.

“I think I knew I was gay when I was a teen-ager, but I tried to be straight,” he said. “I came to the realization that it wasn’t working. I was 30 when I said: ‘I can’t live this lie any more.’ ”

His family--including his son, who came to live with him when he was 15, and his ex-wife--accepted his homosexuality. But his church did not.

“The church said: ‘You cannot be gay’ and excommunicated me,” he said. “They said I was going straight to hell. I believe in God. And, if I think of myself as anything, I still think of myself as Mormon. It was very painful at the time, but I finally realized that I am who I am, and God accepts me the way I am. He’s not ashamed of me.”

For his partner, Javier Abadia, 36, it meant having to leave Colombia for California in 1984 because “they kill you in Bogota if you are gay.”

“It is very repressive there, very dangerous,” said Abadia, a quality control inspector for a surgical supply company who has been with Miner for eight years. “I felt safe in California.”

And for their friend, Sonny, 53, a retired travel agent from West Hollywood, it meant mourning his lover of 17 years who died three years ago of AIDS.

“I feel we had a strong and healthy relationship,” said Sonny, who asked that his last name not be used because “my mother is still in the closet. She knows, but she doesn’t want her friends to know.”

Sonny came here to tell the world that he represents mainstream America--and that people had better take notice because there are plenty of others like him.

“I work hard. I’m successful. I vote,” he said. “I’m a perfect Middle American. What bothers me is that the news always picks up only on the way-out stereotypes.

“There are a lot of wonderful, successful, good people in this city this weekend,” he said, with a sweep of his hand. “Look around you. This is a mirror of America.”