Today marks the first celebration of Harvey Milk Day in California, under a law passed in that state last year; while not a state holiday, public schools will mark the occasion.
Harvey would have turned 80 today; I wonder what he would have to say about the current gay-rights issues and other circumstances of national life here in 2010. He was assassinated in San Francisco on November 27, 1978 - Jimmy Carter was president then, John Paul II had just begun his reign as Pope, and nobody had ever heard of Oprah Winfrey.
And how did I miss this? - last August, President Obama awarded a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom to Milk, which was accepted by his nephew, Stuart, shown below.
Well, I just don't know what to think about this, fellas. God knows I spent a lot of years waiting for a knight in shining armor to come riding along, before I figured out I had to be my own knight. But somehow I just never imagined he would look anything like . . . Rob Reiner?
I'll admit that it makes me just a tiny bit leery of what's going on; because even after all these years, I can't understand why a straight man would be on our side. I still at a deep level see them as implacably hostile to all gays, every one of them.
But - he apparently is putting his money where his mouth is. And so is Ted Olson, the mega-Republican lawyer for our side. Even the judge in this case is a Republican, and he seems kinda sorta to be leaning in our direction. Go figure. I can't keep up with all the changes in the world, you know? Is all this really possible? Cleve Jones seems to be just fine with Reiner's left-field, go-for-broke, Lone Ranger strategy.
So to them I say, go ahead and prove me wrong, boys: show me you really aren't like those nasty schoolyard creeps and bullies from long ago.
Here's Rachel's interview with Olson and Boies. These guys are major-league players at the top of their game, and they know how to play political hardball - which makes this case that much more exciting.
Cleve Jones, creator of the AIDS Quilt, and Dustin Lance Black, screenwriter for the film Milk, published a manifesto forfull equality in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle. It's stirring, moving, . . . and right. Here's an excerpt:
We [GLBT people] have loved our country even as we have been subjected to discrimination, harassment and violence at the hands of our countrymen. We have loved God, even as we were rejected and abandoned by religious leaders, our churches, synagogues and mosques. We have loved democracy, even as we witnessed the ballot box used to deny us our rights.
Like Obama, we never abandoned hope in the American dream of equality and freedom. We never stopped believing that the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights included us.
We have always kept faith with the American people, our neighbors, co-workers, friends and families. But today that faith is tested and we find ourselves at a crossroad in history. . . .
We call on President-elect Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to draft and submit to the Congress comprehensive legislation protecting the civil rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens in all areas, including civil marriage, military service, adoption, Social Security, taxation, immigration, employment, housing and access to health care, social services and education.
We call on our country's leaders to take personal responsibility for involving our nation's religious leaders and the GLBT community in a national dialogue to encourage understanding and reconciliation.
We call on everyone to carry this message of hope and equality throughout our nation, to every place of worship, to every school and factory and shopping center, every city, suburb and farming town. We call on you to march together, demonstrate together, to pray together and dream together of a future America where, finally, all are free.
There are rare moments in human history when, suddenly and unexpectedly, the opportunity for great change and progress becomes possible. Obama has shown us the power of hope and the urgency of seizing that moment. Milk has shown us the power we possess when we make our voices heard.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, harmony; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that I may seek not so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
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We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.
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Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, the touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act - the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?
It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual. You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred. It's like saying you choose to be black in a race-infected society.
If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God.
