Harvey Milk and LGBT Rights

A few moments ago, I finished watching “Milk,” a historical documentary about the life, death, and legacy of Harvey Milk.  Harvey Milk was a local businessman turned politician in the Castro district of San Francisco in the 1970s.  He was also the first openly gay person to be voted into public office in the United States, and a portion of his career focused on campaigning against police persecution and anti-gay ordinances by Anita Bryant in Florida and others across the nation.  The culmination of his activism was the successful voter rejection of Proposition 6, an ordinance which would have mandated the firing of gay teachers or any school employees that supported gay rights.  

On November 27, 1978, Harvey Milk (and Mayor Mascone) was assassinated by his conservative colleague, Dan White.

I’m overcome with a sense of such grief.  Grief that an individual would choose murder over sensible debate or a respectful difference of opinion.  Grief that so many in this movement eventually died from an AIDS epidemic that was largely ignored by the public and the government because of its initial classification as “gay cancer.”  Grief that, twenty years later, we are still allowing the debate of a homosexual’s hospital visitation rights, employment rights, and human rights to even occur.  

Milk was so convinced that his activist lifestyle could incite his assassination that he tape-recorded a message to be played in the event that it came to fruition (the transcript of that recording is here and is worth reading).  In spite of the violence and resistance, Harvey Milk gave a message of hope.  Hope that closed minds could be opened and hope for a better future.

“And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant on television and her story.  The only thing they have to look forward to is hope.  And you have to give them hope.  Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great.  Hope that all will be all right.”    - Harvey Milk

I believe more strongly than ever that this is the civil rights issue of our generation.  We have come so far since the 1970s, but there is still so much to be done to assert equal human rights, regardless of sexual orientation.  I stand with my LGBT brothers and sisters, in activism and in hope that a brighter future of equality is ahead.

What are your memories of Harvey Milk and the anti-gay resistance of the 1970s and 1980s?  Does the debate of the repression of LGBT rights have a legitimate place in our society? What is The Church's role in the LGBT movement? 

- SP

Resources

Started by Dan Savage, the It Gets Better Project is a nonprofit organization that shows "young LGBT people the levels of happiness, potential, and positivity their lives will reach – if they can just get through their teen years. The It Gets Better Project wants to remind teenagers in the LGBT community that they are not alone — and it WILL get better."

The book "And the Band Played On" by Randy Shilts is a heart-wrenching account of the neglect of the public and government at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.  I can't recommend it enough, especially since it gives particular context to the characters of "Milk."