Photo from AP
May 22, 1930– Harvey Milk, a middle-class Jewish guy from NYC, served in the US Navy during the Korean War & like so many other closeted gay people, chose San Francisco in the 1970s as that place to open the door to his true self & be in the company of his tribe.
Listen up all you baby Gays, there is a history lesson to be learned. Sit down & watch the remarkable Oscar winning The Times Of Harvey Milk (1984) & the powerful Oscar winning Milk (2008), directed by my good close personal friend Gus Van Sant.
According to people who knew him, some of whom are friends of mine, Harvey Milk was no saint & not an easy man. He had a temper & a stubborn streak. But his sense of independence freed him from compromising party politics, allowing him to be controlled by his conscience rather than a debt owed to special interest groups. A true patriot, Milk had an absolute allegiance to The Declaration Of Independence & our Constitution, & a defiant defense of individual rights & individual participation in our political process. The gay political establishment in San Francisco pushed against Milk, the man & the idea. As an openly gay man, Milk knew that whoever holds the power, dictates the limits of our individuality.
“It takes no compromise to give people their rights…it takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no survey to remove repression.”
Milk was one of the true political pioneers of the 20th century. He was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office when he won his seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978. Now, 35 years later, all 50 states have been served by an openly gay person in office. My representative to the Oregon State House, Tina Kotek, lives in my neighborhood & my state, Oregon, now is served by an openly bisexual Governor, Kate Brown.
“Coming out is the most political thing you can do.”
Milk’s struggles & his successes show that there is really no such thing as the Gay Agenda, there is simply freedom for all. His energy & his eloquent voice spoke for all minorities, all the voiceless citizens who are crushed in the American cultural conformity.
“All I ever seek is to open up a dialogue that involves all of us.”
People told him that no openly gay man could possibly win political office. Thankfully for all of us, Milk ignored them. He knew that emotional trauma of being in the closet was the gays’ worst enemy, worse than the haters. That made the election of an openly gay person crucial, practically & symbolically.
“You gotta give them hope. Hope will never be silent.”
There was a time not all that long ago when it was impossible to imagine Harvey Milk. Most people, straight & gay, had to adjust to what he represented: a gay person could live their life with honesty & still succeed. That revelation continues to this day as the rights of gay people move baby steps forward with Marriage Equality, & then a step backwards with Freedom Of Religious Expression laws like the one passed in Louisiana this week. With every gay character on TV & film, with each time POTUS mentions us, each politician of any party that embraces the cause, & each state that adds Equal Protection laws, we find that unequivocal equality becomes unquestionable, & that is due in large part to Harvey Milk.
“If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.”
Tragically, an assassin’s bullet did vanquished his voice, but not his momentum. Milk would have celebrated his 85th birthday today.
I have a full sheet, still in their sleeve, of USPS Harvey Milk stamps purchased on the first day that they were issued in April 2014. Today marks the 6th Harvey Milk Day, a legal holiday in California.
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