This was published 4 years ago
The navy demonised Harvey Milk for being gay. Now they're naming a ship named after him
By Marisa Iati
By the time Harvey Milk's supervisors in the US Navy officially questioned him about his sexuality, he had graduated from officer school and had served as a diving officer on a submarine rescue ship during the Korean War.
Harvey Milk, photographed in front of his camera shop in San Francisco in 1977.Credit: AP
Then his superiors caught him in a park that was popular with gay men. The sighting raised questions about Milk's sexual orientation in an era when the military banned gay, lesbian and bisexual service members. Milk was forced to resign.
In a move that signalled an about-face on the issue of gay rights, the navy has started construction on the USNS Harvey Milk, a fleet oiler that will provide fuel to ships and aircraft. Milk's name will appear on a ship, along with other civil rights leaders, including abolitionist Sojourner Truth and suffragist Lucy Stone.
Joining the navy was a tradition in Milk's family. His Lithuanian-born father, William, and his mother, Minerva, both served, according to the Harvey Milk Foundation.
Milk studied maths and history at New York State College for Teachers, which is now the State University of New York, before he enlisted and started Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island.
Sean Penn played Harvey Milk on the big screen.
Life after the navy took Milk to New York, where he worked as a teacher, a stock analyst and a production associate for Broadway musicals. He moved to San Francisco in 1972 and opened a camera shop in the Castro District, which was known for its gay community.
Milk quickly became a powerful local activist. He founded the Castro Village Association for LGBTQ-led businesses, sat on San Francisco's Board of Permit Appeals and in 1978 was sworn in as a city-county supervisor.
In addition to advocating for policies that would affect all residents, Milk was also a fervent protector of gay rights. He joined others in opposing Proposition 6, a California ballot initiative that would have mandated firing gay teaches from public schools. The bill was defeated.
Milk urged gay people to proclaim their sexual orientations as a way of fighting for equality.
"We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions," he said in one speech. "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. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out."
People regularly lobbed death threats at Milk, who created several iterations of his will in case he were to be assassinated. "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door," he said in one version.
Milk's prediction became reality on November 27, 1978, when Dan White entered city hall through a basement window, killed the mayor, George Moscone, and shot Milk several times. Moscone had decided days earlier not to reappoint White to the legislative body.
Dianne Feinstein, then a supervisor and now a Democratic senator from California, found Milk's body and told people who gathered at city hall that Moscone and Milk, then 48, had been killed. White pleaded "diminished capacity" at trial because he had eaten a lot of sugar-heavy food before the killings.
A jury found White guilty of voluntary manslaughter – not murder. Riots and candlelight vigils ensued. White served five years in prison and later killed himself.
Milk's legacy lives on.
It wasn't until more than a decade after his death that the navy would have been barred from forcing Milk out for being gay. President Bill Clinton in 1993 signed a policy of "don't ask, don't tell," which banned harassment of "closeted" service members, but still banned openly LGBTQ people from the armed forces. President Barack Obama repealed the policy in 2011, opening the door for LGBTQ military members to reveal their sexual orientations.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2012 urged the secretary of the navy to name a ship after Milk, one of the nation's first openly gay elected officials. The answer to their request would come four years later.
"When Harvey Milk served in the military, he couldn't tell anyone who he truly was," Scott Wiener, then a San Francisco supervisor, wrote in 2016 when the navy announced the ship's name.
"Now our country is telling the men and women who serve, and the entire world, that we honour and support people for who they are."
The Washington Post