Navy to name ship after gay-rights activist Milk
New fleet to honor former officer, civil rights leaders
Pioneering gay-rights activist and former Navy officer Harvey Milk is set to have a fleet oiler named for him, according to a leaked congressional notice.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus sent a letter to Capitol Hill on July 14, according to a Navy official, to inform lawmakers he intends to name a Military Sealift Command ship after the politician, who became the first openly gay person to hold public office in California in 1978.
Mabus’ office declined to comment until an official ship-naming release was sent out, spokesman Lt. Eric Durie told Navy Times.
Milk, the son of two Navy veterans, served as a diving officer aboard the submarine rescue ship Kittiwake then as a diving instructor at Naval Base San Diego before his honorable discharge as a lieutenant junior grade in 1955.
A prominent member of San Francisco’s LGBT community during the 1970s, Milk was elected to the San Francisco board of supervisors. He sponsored a landmark antidiscrimination bill that prohibited prejudicial treatment based on sexual orientation.
In November 1978, he was shot and killed along with San Francisco Mayor George Moscone by former supervisor Dan White, who was angry about having lost his position within the city government. Milk’s life and death were dramatized in the 2008 movie Milk.
The campaign to get a ship named after him was spearheaded by Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif.
In January, Mabus announced the nextgeneration class of fleet replenishment oilers would be named for civil rights leaders. The first ship was named for John Lewis, a Georgia Democratic congressman.