Gay rights icon Harvey Milk’s legacy slighted by decision to rename Navy ship

By Andy Rose, CNN

(CNN) — American gay rights activist Harvey Milk was known for keeping his face and name on the front pages of San Francisco’s newspapers.

Now, as Pride Month begins, the Trump administration is set to take the almost unprecedented action of stripping his name from a Navy ship, a defense official told CNN.

The order to rename the oiler ship USNS Harvey Milk – christened four years ago – is unusual but is in line with the White House mandate to reverse a number of military initiatives by Democratic presidents.

The move also comes amid the administration’s broader efforts to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in government and education, as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s promise to “revive the warrior ethos” in the military.

Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. His legacy as one of the first openly gay politicians elected to office in the US – and the first openly gay official elected in California – was burnished in history with an Oscar-winning biopic performance from Sean Penn.

Who was Harvey Milk?

Before Milk served as a supervisor in San Francisco, the politician followed in the footsteps of his parents and served in the Navy.

His service as a stateside diving instructor during the Korean War was cut short after four years when his Navy supervisors caught him at a park popular for gay men and questioned him about his sexual orientation.

Decades before the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy prohibited the military from actively investigating its members’ sexuality, Milk was outed and forced to resign with an “other than honorable discharge” and the rank of lieutenant junior grade. Gay service members were not allowed to serve openly in the US until 2011.

Milk later set up shop in the Castro neighborhood in San Francisco – the country’s most famous “gayborhood” – where he helped start the Castro Village Association, one of the first predominantly LGBTQ-owned business groups in the country. In 1977, he was elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors after years running his political operation from his camera store in the Castro, where stacks of campaign posters competed for space with stacks of 35mm film.

While serving as a city supervisor, Milk introduced legislation to protect the gay community, including a gay rights ordinance in 1978 to ban discrimination against LGBTQ people in housing or employment. He and other activists also succeeded in striking down Proposition 6, which would have mandated the firing of gay or lesbian teachers in California.

Milk’s assassination

Milk was a popular figure in San Francisco, but his actions were also controversial at times.

Milk fervently encouraged gay people not to be secretive about their lives, even with hostile or unsupportive family members.

“We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I’m going to talk about it,” he said at a 1978 gay pride march. “And I want you to talk about it.”

Milk is believed to have been one of the people behind the forced media outing of Oliver Sipple, a friend and fellow veteran who was credited with saving the life of President Gerald Ford when he grabbed the arm of would-be assassin Sara Jane Moore just as she was firing her second shot in 1975.

Milk’s biographer Randy Shilts told The Washington Post the politician “wanted Sipple’s homosexuality made public” because it was an opportunity for the gay community to be seen in a positive light.

“For once we can show that gays do heroic things,” he told Shilts.

Sipple, who had not come out to his parents and didn’t want his sexuality revealed, unsuccessfully sued media organizations that reported on it, according to The Washington Post.

Less than a year after Milk became a city supervisor, he and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were shot to death in the San Francisco City Hall by former fellow city supervisor Dan White over a job dispute.

Investigators determined that White was motivated by a political dispute rather than anti-gay animus.

But a jury’s decision to convict White of manslaughter rather than murder shocked the gay community and prompted rioting at City Hall, the San Francisco Examiner reported. White argued in the trial that he was not fully responsible for the killings because he was depressed and acted in “the heat of passion.”

White was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Milk’s legacy has never faded in San Francisco, where his bust now sits in City Hall and a school in the Castro is named after him. Milk, who told friends and loved ones he knew he was in danger of being assassinated, according to the Harvey Milk Foundation, hoped his death would inspire the cause he worked for.

“If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door,” Milk said in an audio message accompanying his will.

Unclear future for the honors of other civil rights leaders

The USNS Harvey Milk is part of a class of oilers that were designated to be named for “people who fought for civil rights and human rights.” Some of those namesakes are people who never served in the military, including congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis and women’s voting rights advocate Lucy Stone.

The future of those other honors is unclear. A Navy webpage marking the beginning of construction on the USNS Thurgood Marshall has been deleted.

Although much of the administration’s LGBTQ rollback has been focused on the transgender community – the federal government even removed the “T” from the abbreviation – it has also cracked down on affinity groups and barred the flying of the Pride flag at any US embassy or consulate.

The administration also formally declined to recognize Pride Month, instead referring to June as “Title IX Month,” referencing the civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools. The White House has cited the law in its ban on transgender women participating in women’s sports.

Despite the decision falling in line with White House policy, Rep. Nancy Pelosi – whose San Francisco district includes the Castro – said erasing Milk from the military is particularly insulting.

“Our military is the most powerful in the world – but this spiteful move does not strengthen our national security or the ‘warrior’ ethos,” Pelosi said in a statement.
“Instead, it is a surrender of a fundamental American value: to honor the legacy of those who worked to build a better country.”

CNN’s Natasha Bertrand and Nicquel Terry Ellis contributed to this report.

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