Like the revolutionaries of our nation's past, this man took a bullet so that, today, our legislatures can peacefully pass laws that recognize the full humanity of gay people in New York State and in all of America. After all the bullshit, this is what it comes down to: we progress with determination, with pride, and with arguing, but in the end we do it peacefully.
Sometimes I feel like burning the buildings down. But that's not necessary tonight.
Tonight, Harvey Milk is smiling. Those of you who fought on the front lines for this victory are his inheritors. Be proud.
Harvey Milk speaking about giving hope to young gays. We've come such a long way since he spoke these words, but we still have a long way to go. This video is very, very cool and inspiring. You gotta give 'em hope!
In response to the recent suicide of Billy Lucas, a fifteen-year-old Indiana teenager who was taunted for being gay, Dan Savage has launched a new initiative, the It Gets Better Project, to communicate to young gay kids that their lives are not hopeless despite the bigotry and hatred they may encounter in their communities and from their families and so-called friends. As Dan tells it:
"My heart breaks for the pain and torment you went through, Billy Lucas," a reader wrote after I posted about Billy Lucas to my blog. "I wish I could have told you that things get better." I had the same reaction: I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.
But gay adults aren't allowed to talk to these kids. Schools and churches don't bring us in to talk to teenagers who are being bullied. Many of these kids have homophobic parents who believe that they can prevent their gay children from growing up to be gay—or from ever coming out—by depriving them of information, resources, and positive role models.
Why are we waiting for permission to talk to these kids? We have the ability to talk directly to them right now. We don't have to wait for permission to let them know that it gets better. We can reach these kids. So here's what you can do, GBVWS: Make a video. Tell them it gets better. I've launched a channel on YouTube to host these videos. My normally camera-shy husband and I already posted one.
Watch the beautiful, funny, touching, and hope-filled video above, and then go to the YouTube page and see how you can submit your own video message to gay kids. It will be noticed. It is necessary. Dan Savage quotes the man himself: "You gotta give 'em hope," Harvey Milk said.
Harvey Milk walking from the Castro to San Francisco City Hall on the day of his inauguration to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, January 8, 1978. (Photo by Danny Nicoletta)
Remembering our history via a blog post by Dan Zak. I’ve been recently reminded that the younger generation, the next group of gay youth to grow into their lives with more confidence than us older gays did, may not know the history of how we – and they – got here; how we arrived a point where past gay warriors have wrought for these inspiring young people a world that, though not yet perfect, is far better than it was three-four-five decades ago.
For a demographic that was once so twined with mortality, the gays have gotten good (or have they always been good?) at focusing on the now, the young, the ephemeral. Today’s gays — the gays of my generation, the millennials, the 20-somethings — are post-gay, or New Gay, loosed from the closet, free of the diving bell of AIDS-as-executioner, left to skirmish over (or ignore) petty legislative battles on a state-by-state or school-by-school basis. The “end of gay culture” has been journaled for nearly a generation now. What about gay history? Is that ending too? From Sappho to Prop 8, and then what? Now what? Yearly parades celebrating outrageousness, tempered by the tired yammerings of marriage defenders?
I want to remind these youth and teach them about the gay men and women who should be their heroes; I want these young gay people to know about and remember the struggles that came in the past, to learn about Harvey Milk and Harry Hay and the many others like them who faced down bigotry so entrenched in society that it took great leaps of imagination – and great courage – to take those first steps toward equality. The schools don’t yet teach this; it is up to us to make sure our history is passed along.
James Bennion, 15, began his project at the start of the year. Six months later, he’s got a GSA well on the way to being started at South Davis Junior High, having gathered 120 signatures from students at the junior high.
High schools were once the domain of GSAs, but in recent years such groups have also become more commonplace at junior high schools, as GLBT youth come out at younger ages and awareness permeates the culture that anti-gay taunts, harassment, and attacks do not have to be accepted as a young gay person’s lot in life.
"I just think people should be able to go to school without fear of being assaulted," Bennion told the press, going on to note that young GLBTs "shouldn’t have to miss days of school for fear of being bullied."
This keeps up and who knows? Maybe seeing the hope-filled faces of these brave gay kids will shame into silence the kind of nasty bigots talked about in the article.
There are, however, several states that are mandated to refer to same-sex orientation and homosexuality as negative. Some of those states include Utah, South Carolina, Mississippi and Arizona. Oklahoma is required to "instruct students that engaging in homosexual activity or promiscuous activity is now known to be primarily responsible for contact with the AIDS virus."
The most conservative state in this regard, Alabama, is required to reference state laws that ban sodomy, must refer to same sex activity as a public health risk and must state homosexuality is not acceptable to the general public, according to SIECUS.
Although California lawmakers approved Harvey Milk Day, Save California and other organizations continue to boycott it.
Unbelievable. This just goes to show that the fight still continues. And someone needs to let Alabama know that Lawrence v. Texas struck down sodomy laws in the U.S. I think the first reader comment below the article pretty much sums up how I feel about the whole thing.
This is an awesome video of kids, teachers. faculty, and parents at the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy in San Francisco wishing Harvey Milk a happy birthday! This sort of thing gives me hope for a better world in the future, a world like the one these people work for that is free of hate and bigotry. The terrible fact is that some people will be frightened of this video and what it represents: change and hope. Sometimes, when I can stop feeling angry at people like that, I feel an immense sadness that they may never know the sort of joy expressed in this video.
But for this week, let's put sadness aside. The man would have been eighty this year, and this video is a significant part of his legacy.
Your host, young and gay, circa 1978. The hat belonged to my sister. And yes, that is what you think it is on the shirt.
Not a bad article about how families deal with realizing their child is gay, from the the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal about gay kids, even though for a bit I though the writer was about to give far too much time and credence to the whack-jobs at the entirely bogus ACP. This line hit home:
In some cases, children who grow up believing that homosexuality isn't acceptable may try to deny and ignore their own feelings. "We call it going underground," says Dr. Perrin. "They live that way until they are 30 or 40 and say, 'I just can't do it anymore.' Or maybe some of them their whole life live in a pretend world of not feeling quite right but it's the best compromise they can make to feel accepted."
I know what that's like, especially growing up here in the Midwest, where suspicion and hatred of gays can still be pretty high. This article at The New York Times covers some of the same territory. Despite the way the world has changed over the past thirty years or so, the prejudice that young gays often encounter is sometimes overwhelming. If sometimes we seem a bit over-passionate in fighting for gay equality, much of it may have to do with our memories of what it was like to be young, gay, and very often alone.
Keep fighting for equality, and keep working to give these young gay kids hope. Harvey Milk showed us the way; we need to stick with the fight for as long as it takes.
Here come the wingnuts! This month marks the first observance of Harvey Milk Day in California, and as expected the homo-haters are starting to crawl out from under their rocks and denounce it. This video report from a television station in Bakersfield, California, is a nice, short summary of what you can expect to see as we draw closer to the event. Don't get me started on the idiot in the video who says that we shouldn't honor someone for his sexual orientation, only for his achievement. Harvey Milk achieved plenty, you doofus, and much of it was to demonstrate what ignoramuses people like you really are. Young gay people need a voice -- as Harvey said, you've got to give them hope -- and observing Harvey Milk Day is one way for us older gays to let the kids know they are not alone, because there are still plenty of places in this country where it is still terrifying to realize that you're gay and there is no one around to support you. I would like to see Harvey Milk Day observed not only in California, but throughout the entire US. That kid in Altoona, Pennsylvania, deserves it.
I watched Milk again tonight. I love this film more and more every time I watch it. I remember all of this when it happened; I was a teenager at the time and not quite yet ready to face up to being gay -- but I was getting there. It was not an easy time, and I remember how it felt to be alone with what you knew about yourself. When I finally faced the truth, I was both happy and scared. Unfortunately, the fear dominated my life for too many years. I regret abandoning that joy, which is what every gay kid should feel when he or she figures it out. Times have changed...
The "Hope Speech" was written by Frank Robinson*, who plays himself in the movie. It is probably Harvey Milk's most famous speech. The speech he gave at the Gay Freedom Day event in 1978, written by Robinson, is even more radical. Anyway, here it is. Also, if you haven't seen the 1984 Oscar-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, do so now -- it's available at YouTube.
*I wonder if I would have had fewer problems accepting myself as being gay if I had known about Robinson. He's written several novels, and one I read many times when I was a boy was The Glass Inferno, one of the two books that served as the basis for Irwin Allen's disaster epic, The Towering Inferno (and, I might add, the better of the two novels, which makes up about 75% of the the storyline in the film). In those days, movies with things burning down and blowing up were catnip to kids like me. Like I said, had I known...
My name is Harvey Milk and I'm here to recruit you.
I've been saying this one for years. It's a political joke. I can't help it--I've got to tell it. I've never been able to talk to this many political people before, so if I tell you nothing else you may be able to go home laughing a bit.
This ocean liner was going across the ocean and it sank. And there was one little piece of wood floating and three people swam to it and they realized only one person could hold on to it. So they had a little debate about which was the person. It so happened that the three people were the Pope, the President, and Mayor Daley. The Pope said he was titular head of one of the greatest religions of the world and he was spiritual adviser to many, many millions and he went on and pontificated and they thought it was a good argument. Then the President said he was leader of the largest and most powerful nation of the world. What takes place in this country affects the whole world and they thought that was a good argument. And Mayor Daley said he was mayor of the backbone of the Untied States and what took place in Chicago affected the world, and what took place in the archdiocese of Chicago affected Catholicism. And they thought that was a good argument. So they did it the democratic way and voted. And Daley won, seven to two.
About six months ago, Anita Bryant in her speaking to God said that the drought in California was because of the gay people. On November 9, the day after I got elected, it started to rain. On the day I got sworn in, we walked to City Hall and it was kinda nice, and as soon as I said the word "I do," it started to rain again. It's been raining since then and the people of San Francisco figure the only way to stop it is to do a recall petition. That's the local joke.
So much for that. Why are we here? Why are gay people here? And what's happening? What's happening to me is the antithesis of what you read about in the papers and what you hear about on the radio. You hear about and read about this movement to the right. That we must band together and fight back this movement to the right. And I'm here to go ahead and say that what you hear and read is what they want you to think because it's not happening. The major media in this country has talked about the movement to the right so the legislators think that there is indeed a movement to the right and that the Congress and the legislators and the city councils will start to move to the right the way the major media want them. So they keep on talking about this move to the right.
So let's look at 1977 and see if there was indeed a move to the right. In 1977, gay people had their rights taken away from them in Miami. But you must remember that in the week before Miami and the week after that, the word homosexual or gay appeared in every single newspaper in this nation in articles both pro and con. In every radio station, in every TV station and every household. For the first time in the history of the world, everybody was talking about it, good or bad. Unless you have dialogue, unless you open the walls of dialogue, you can never reach to change people's opinion. In those two weeks, more good and bad, but more about the word homosexual and gay was written than probably in the history of mankind. Once you have dialogue starting, you know you can break down prejudice. In 1977 we saw a dialogue start. In 1977, we saw a gay person elected in San Francisco. In 1977 we saw the state of Mississippi decriminalize marijuana. In 1977, we saw the convention of conventions in Houston. And I want to know where the movement to the right is happening.
What that is is a record of what happened last year. What we must do is make sure that 1978 continues the movement that is really happening that the media don't want you to know about. That is the movement to the left. It's up to CDC to put the pressures on Sacramento--but to break down the walls and the barriers so the movement to the left continues and progress continues in the nation. We have before us coming up several issues we must speak out on. Probably the most important issue outside the Briggs--which we will come to--but we do know what will take place this June. We know there's an issue on the ballot called Jarvis-Gann. We hear the taxpayers talk about it on both sides. But what you don't hear is that it's probably the most racist issue on the ballot in a long time. In the city and county of San Francisco, if it passes and we indeed have to lay off people, who will they be? The last in, and the first in, and who are the last in but the minorities? Jarvis-Gann is a racist issue. We must address that issue. We must not talk away from it. We must not allow them to talk about the money it's going to save, because look at who's going to save the money and who's going to get hurt.
We also have another issue that we've started in some of the north counties and I hope in some of the south counties it continues. In San Francisco elections we're asking--at least we hope to ask-- that the U.S. government put pressure on the closing of the South African consulate. That must happen. There is a major difference between an embassy in Washington which is a diplomatic bureau. and a consulate in major cities. A consulate is there for one reason only -- to promote business, economic gains, tourism, investment. And every time you have business going to South Africa, you're promoting a regime that's offensive.
In the city of San Francisco, if everyone of 51 percent of that city were to go to South Africa, they would be treated as second-class citizens. That is an offense to the people of San Francisco and I hope all my colleagues up there will take every step we can to close down that consulate and hope that people in other parts of the state follow us in that lead. The battles must be started some place and CDC is the greatest place to start the battles. I know we are pressed for time so I'm going to cover just one more little point. That is to understand why it is important that gay people run for office and that gay people get elected. I know there are many people in this room who are running for central committee who are gay. I encourage you. There's a major reason why. If my non-gay friends and supporters in this room understand it, they'll probably understand why I've run so often before I finally made it. Y'see right now, there's a controversy going on in this convention about the gay governor. Is he speaking out enough? Is he strong enough for gay rights? And there is controversy and for us to say it is not would be foolish. Some people are satisfied and some people are not.
You see there is am major difference--and it remains a vital difference--between a friend and a gay person, a friend in office and a gay person in office. Gay people have been slandered nationwide. We've been tarred and we've been brushed with the picture of pornography. In Dade County, we were accused of child molestation. It's not enough anymore just to have friends represent us. No matter how good that friend may be.
The black community made up its mind to that a long time ago. That the myths against blacks can only be dispelled by electing black leaders, so the black community could be judged by the leaders and not by the myths or black criminals. The Spanish community must not be judged by Latin criminals or myths. The Asian community must not be judged by Asian criminals or myths. The Italian community must not be judged by the mafia, myths. And the time has come when the gay community must not be judged by our criminals and myths.
Like every other group, we must be judged by our leaders and by those who are themselves gay, those who are visible. For invisible, we remain in limbo--a myth, a person with no parents, no brothers, no sisters, no friends who are straight, no important positions in employment. A tenth of the nation supposedly composed of stereotypes and would-be seducers of children--and no offense meant to the stereotypes. But today, the black community is not judged by its friends, but by its black legislators and leaders. And we must give people the chance to judge us by our leaders and legislators. A gay person in office can set a tone, con command respect not only from the larger community, but from the young people in our own community who need both examples and hope.
The first gay people we elect must be strong. They must not be content to sit in the back of the bus. They must not be content to accept pablum. They must be above wheeling and dealing. They must be--for the good of all of us--independent, unbought. The anger and the frustrations that some of us feel is because we are misunderstood, and friends can't feel the anger and frustration. They can sense it in us, but they can't feel it. Because a friend has never gone through what is known as coming out. I will never forget what it was like coming out and having nobody to look up toward. I remember the lack of hope--and our friends can't fulfill it.
I can't forget the looks on faces of people who've lost hope. Be they gay, be they seniors, be they blacks looking for an almost-impossilbe job, be they Latins trying to explain their problems and aspirations in a tongue that's foreign to them. I personally will never forget that people are more important than buildings. I use the word "I" because I'm proud. I stand here tonight in front of my gay sisters, brothers and friends because I'm proud of you. I think it's time that we have many legislators who are gay and proud of that fact and do not have to remain in the closet. I think that a gay person, up-front, will not walk away from a responsibility and be afraid of being tossed out of office. After Dade County, I walked among the angry and the frustrated night after night and I looked at their faces. And in San Francisco, three days before Gay Pride Day, a person was killed just because he was gay. And that night, I walked among the sad and the frustrated at City Hall in San Francisco and later that night as they lit candles on Castro Street and stood in silence, reaching out for some symbolic thing that would give them hope. These were strong people, whose faces I knew from the shop, the streets, meetings and people who I never saw before but I knew. They were strong, but even they needed hope.
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. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.
So if there is a message I have to give, it is that I've found one overriding thing about my personal election, it's the fact that if a gay person can be elected, it's a green light. And you and you and you, you have to give people hope. Thank you very much.
A great documentary, especially if you love Gus Van Sant's Milk.
