Forty years ago, on Nov. 27, 1978, California's first openly gay elected official was assassated. Harvey Milk champned gay rights and challenged the LGBTQ muny to be out and proud.
Contents:
- 40 YEARS AFTER ASSASSATN OF FIRST OPENLY GAY ELECTED OFFICIAL IN CALIFORNIA
- HARVEY MILK BE THE FIRST OPENLY GAY PERSON ELECTED TO PUBLIC OFFICE CALIFORNIA
- GAV NEWSOM: ‘UNBELIEVABLE’ GAY MARRIAGE CISN, 11 YEARS AFTER HIS MOVE
- SF MAYOR GAV NEWSOM RISKS CAREER ON GAY MARRIAGE
- SAN FRANCIS MAY GET S FIRST GAY MAYOR
- ASSASSATED SAN FRANCIS MAYOR’S PAPERS GIVE FASCATG GLIMPSE OF EARLY GAY RIGHTS POLICS
40 YEARS AFTER ASSASSATN OF FIRST OPENLY GAY ELECTED OFFICIAL IN CALIFORNIA
This week marks the 40th anniversary of the assassatn of gay rights lear and San Francis Supervisor Harvey Milk and San Francis Mayor Gee Mosne. * gay mayor san francisco *
40 Years After Assassatn Of First Openly Gay Elected Official In California This week marks the 40th anniversary of the assassatn of gay rights lear and San Francis Supervisor Harvey Milk and San Francis Mayor Gee Mosne. 40 Years After Assassatn Of First Openly Gay Elected Official In California. This week marks the 40th anniversary of the assassatn of gay rights lear and San Francis Supervisor Harvey Milk and San Francis Mayor Gee Mosne.
SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST: Colorado this month elected the untry's first openly gay ernor. This all 40 years after the assassatn of the first openly gay elected official California, Harvey Milk. In California, a nservative state senator named John Briggs was phg a statewi ballot measure - Prop 6 - to ban gay and lbian teachers.
Harvey Milk, an openly gay member of the San Francis Board of Supervisors, led the fight agast the proposn, batg Briggs around the state.
HARVEY MILK BE THE FIRST OPENLY GAY PERSON ELECTED TO PUBLIC OFFICE CALIFORNIA
Gav Newsom was jumpg to the r, head to a breakfast speech on job creatn, when a monplace day turned extraordary: The Supreme Court of the Uned Stat had affirmed the right of gays to marry. * gay mayor san francisco *
He thought the murr meant the end of the gay rights movement. Today the seat Milk held when he was killed is occupied by another openly gay man, Rafael MANDELMAN: As someone who was 5 years old when he was shot, I am ntually grateful, not jt for Harvey but for the folks of that generatn who really did change the But first, Manlman not, Milk changed himself.
But he worri that as queer people are priced out of gay neighborhoods like the Castro, dilut their polil power. Gwen Craig, who me to San Francis the 1970s and worked wh Harvey Milk before he was killed, trac all back to Milk phg people to e out of the CRAIG: I do thk that he sort of started this path that ma possible for the openly gay officials that were elected this last round. A prev versn of this story rrectly stated that Gee Mosne was the first openly gay elected official California.
GAV NEWSOM: ‘UNBELIEVABLE’ GAY MARRIAGE CISN, 11 YEARS AFTER HIS MOVE
Mark Leno would have been the cy's first gay mayor, but London Breed mak history as s first Ain-Amerin woman mayor. * gay mayor san francisco *
In fact, Harvey Milk was the first openly gay elected official California. Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official the history of California, tak his place on the San Francis Board of Supervisors on January 8, 1978. The first and, for years, most visible openly gay polician Ameri, Milk was a longtime activist and pneerg lear of San Francis’s LGBT servg the Navy durg the Korean War, Milk held several whe-llar jobs New York Cy.
Inially nservative and reluctant to advote for gay rights, Milk’s views changed around the time he and his then-partner opened a mera shop on Castro Street, the heart of the San Francis’s LGBT muny, many bs owners and cizens of the largely-gay Castro District, Milk was harassed by police and lol officials.
Dpe alienatg many Democrats, cludg other gay activists, wh his bombastic language and flower-child persona, he won the Castro district handily and me 10 out of 32 ndidat.
SF MAYOR GAV NEWSOM RISKS CAREER ON GAY MARRIAGE
Gav Newsom, a vol supporter of gay marriage, is bettg his future on the fact that social attus are growg more liberal. * gay mayor san francisco *
Still, Milk and the Castro’s rise to power cid wh the rise of anti-gay reactnari like Ana Bryant, and Milk unrstood both the power and the danger of his posn as facto lear of the largt gay muny Ameri. On the nth anniversary of the Stonewall Rts, shortly after his partner mted suici and the face of nservative backlash across the untry, Milk addrsed San Francis’s gay pri para, begng wh his tchphrase “My name is Harvey Milk and I’m here to rec you” and endg wh a msage of “Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to e to if the prsur at home are too great. ”The followg November, 75 percent of California voters rejected a referendum that would have allowed schools to fire teachers for beg homosexual.
On the 50th anniversary of Stonewall 2019, Milk was an gural ductee onto the Natnal LGBTQ Wall of MORE: The Gay Rights MovementAlso on This Day History January | 8.
Gav Newsom was jumpg to the r, head to a breakfast speech on job creatn, when a monplace day turned extraordary: The Supreme Court of the Uned Stat had affirmed the right of gays to rights have been fought for over s. But among the polil class, Newsom was the protagonist who almost sglehandly wrenched gay marriage onto California’s radar.
SAN FRANCIS MAY GET S FIRST GAY MAYOR
* gay mayor san francisco *
As San Francis mayor 2004 he phed the cy to issue marriage licens to gay upl, openg a turbulent 11-year siege of unns celebrated and blocked, anti-marriage mpaigns and urt battl, and public opposn that slowly then swiftly turned to public Friday, a majory of the urt’s jtic announced that they, too, saw gay marriage as a basic right too long nied. Not after the ballot measur all over the untry subsequent years that sought to forbid gay marriage.
12, 2004, ma the first municipaly the natn to issue marriage licens to gay upl.
ASSASSATED SAN FRANCIS MAYOR’S PAPERS GIVE FASCATG GLIMPSE OF EARLY GAY RIGHTS POLICS
It was a rebell gture: Gay marriage was illegal almost everywhere, cludg the state of California. Senators, om the Bay area — were opposed to gay marriage.
A Los Angel Tim poll taken two months after Newsom’s actn showed that only 31% of Californians supported gay marriage, while 40% nsired morally ’s actn was ultimately quashed by the urts but he remaed an tegral player, the worst way. In May of 2008, when the state Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, he growled out a fger-potg, tntg msage to gay marriage opponents. In the narrowg marg was a harbger of astonishg change to the last several years, approval of gay marriage has surged at warp speed.
A USC Dornsife/Los Angel Tim poll May of 2013 found that 58% of Californians approved of gay marriage, almost double the percentage om ne years earlier. In that poll, more than a quarter of nservativ and 35% of Republins supported gay marriage.