What Harvey Milk Would Say to America Today

by Michael Jones · 2009-11-27 08:27:00 UTC
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Harvey MilkToday marks the 31st anniversary of the assassination of Harvey Milk, the San Francisco city supervisor who became an LGBT rights political legend for his work demanding equality.

In legacy terms, it's been a very good year for Milk. The movie based on his life, Milk, won several Oscars, and Milk himself was inducted into the California Museum's Hall of Fame. Milk was even awarded a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, becoming one of the very few openly LGBT people to receive such an award.

Perhaps the best news is that after multiple efforts, the California state government finally enacted a law that will create a Harvey Milk Day in the state, to be commemorated every May 22 to honor the birth of Milk. In May 2010, on what would have been Milk's 80th birthday, California residents will celebrate his life and legacy for the first time with the blessing of the state.

But today, during a holiday season that encourages us to give thanks and undertake reflection, it seems fitting to ask the question "What Would Harvey Milk Say?" about the state of LGBT rights, and the battles we're both winning and losing in the struggle for equality.

One simple guess as to what Milk would say today, that doesn't differ at all from what Milk said during the last summer of his life in 1978 as he was fighting an anti-gay ballot initiative in California, is that gay people won't win any demands for equal rights so long as they stay hidden.

"Gay people, we will not win our rights by staying silently in our closets...We are coming out. We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. 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," Milk said.

That's pretty sage advice. If nobody knows that we're out there, they won't know that we deserve equal rights. And if nobody knows we're out there, then the other side's lies, distortions and myths about sexual orientation continue to gain influence.

But as Adam Bink over at Open Left points out, Milk's advice doesn't end with opening the closet door. It's advice that LGBT folks need to carry with them long after they come out, into conversation after conversation.

"In 2009, coming out is just as important, but our side has to do more. We need to talk about marriage. And it can't just be up to the gays," Bink writes. "We have to have one-on-one conversations about marriage equality, and the holidays are the perfect time to do that. There is no better way to reach your friend or family member, and there is nothing better -- not direct mail, or TV, or any campaign tactic -- to win people over."

Time and time again, the strategy that works best for winning people over on LGBT rights issues is personal conversations. No amount of television advertising or direct mail can ever tell my Aunt in Southwestern Pennsylvania what it's like to wake up next to my partner, or how much joy I get from leaving him little surprises and seeing him smile, or even just cooking dinner with him. The same is true for the hundreds of thousands of stories we all have about what it means to share life with the ones we love.

Advertising alone can't tell those messages. We need to. And we need to keep telling those stories long after coming out the closet if we ever hope to change enough hearts and minds on our issues.

That's what Harvey Milk might say to an America today that is struggling with another year in which we lost a marriage equality battle at the ballot box, and have seen rumblings that anti-gay activists will try and take marriage rights away in at least two other states.

As Milk's campaign manager Anne Kronenberg once said, "[Milk] imagined a righteous world inside his head and then he set about to create it for real, for all of us." The duty to create that world now falls on us, but we can do it. Our most righteous weapon is our voice. Let's be sure to use it this holiday season and beyond.

(Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Historical Society.)

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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