GASTONIA Jim Forrester, the Gaston County lawmaker who pushed hard to ban gay marriage for a good part of his 11 terms in the N.C. Senate, died Monday at age 74.

A retired physician, Forrester had suffered health problems for several months, according to his wife of 51 years, Mary Frances Forrester..

On Friday, Forrester and family members went to the mountains near Valle Crucis, where he suffered a weakness in his legs. They came home and he was admitted to Gaston Memorial Hospital for tests. His wife said he died peacefully around noon Monday from cranial bleeding.

He earned a legislative victory in September when the legislature approved a May statewide constitutional referendum on whether to ban gay marriage in North Carolina.

Forrester had strong convictions and stuck by them, according to friends like Rep. William Current Sr. of Gaston County.

"He said, 'Well, you have to be thick-skinned in the political world,'" recalled Current, a friend for more than 25 years.

Forrester represented state District 41, which includes Gaston, Lincoln and Iredell counties. This year, he became deputy Senate leader.

Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, the son of a professional golfer, Forrester came to the U.S. at age 11 with little money. As he and his mother passed through Ellis Island, Mary Frances Forrester said, Jim Forrester and his mother looked at the Statue of Liberty.

"She said, 'This is going to be your home and the statue means you can become anything you're willing to work hard enough to become,'" Mary Frances Forrester said. "But you must remember to help others. You must give back more than you take.' That was the essence of Jim."

Forrester said her husband worked his way through Wake Forest University selling Bibles. He earned medical degrees from Wake Forest University School of Medicine (formally Bowman Gray School of Medicine) in 1962 and UNC Chapel Hill in 1978. In 1963, he opened a family practice in Stanley.

"I asked him why he stayed," said a longtime friend, Forrest Armstrong, 80. "He said because the people were so friendly and that he loved the idea of being a small town doctor."

Forrester was a retired brigadier general with the U.S. Air Force and N.C. Air National Guard. He was a flight surgeon during the Vietnam War, flying on missions that carried medical supplies to Vietnam and brought back dead and wounded soldiers. Elected to the Gaston Board of County Commissioners in 1982, he served until 1990, the year he was first elected to the state Senate.

In addition to his wife, Forrester is survived by three daughters, a son and eight grandchildren. A memorial service will be announced later, with burial in Arlington National Cemetery.

DePriest: 704-868-7745