Harvey Milk to be honoured with a street name in San Diego (San Francisco: live, dangerous)

[SunnyKayak]

The San Diego City Council voted 8-0 yesterday to rename the street, currently called Blaine Street.

Susan Jester, a gay rights activist, said: ”Harvey Milk is to the gay community as Cesar Chavez is to the Hispanic community and Martin Luther King is to the African American community.”

Way to go San Diego in honoring another leader of equality.
Hopefully other cities will follow suit.

[kettlepot]

Blaine! Blaine! James G. Blaine! Plumed knight from the state of Maine!



This is just an example of anti-facial hair bigotry, depriving the bearded of their proper historical recognition.

[tonyinsd]

I'm fine with honoring Milk, but what tie did he have to San Diego?

[sdurbanite]

Originally Posted by tonyinsd

I'm fine with honoring Milk, but what tie did he have to San Diego?

I believe he was stationed here while in the Navy. Naming a street after Milk probably has the same significance as referring to the 94 as the MLK freeway. There is also a street that was renamed Cesar Chavez Parkway in Barrio Logan.

[doublerock]

Originally Posted by tonyinsd

I'm fine with honoring Milk, but what tie did he have to San Diego?

I think he is seen as a national champion of gay rights not just in SF.

[SunnyKayak]

Exactly, a lot like Martin Luther King fighting for equality.
I'm sure there was a lot of debate in cities across the nation on naming streets after MLK.
This is something to be proud about San Dieogans in being the first.

[MovingAloha]

Originally Posted by kettlepot

Blaine! Blaine! James G. Blaine! Plumed knight from the state of Maine!

Attachment 95679

This is just an example of anti-facial hair bigotry, depriving the bearded of their proper historical recognition.

- Good One!!

[JamestheFin]

Originally Posted by tonyinsd

I'm fine with honoring Milk, but what tie did he have to San Diego?

The better question is, what did Harvey Milk have to do with a murder-suicide cult?

Harvey Milk, who later became a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, first became acquainted with the Temple while running for a seat in the California State Assembly against Art Agnos Jim Jones initially telephoned a Milk campaign worker and stated that he wished to back Milk, apologized for earlier backing Agnos and said he would "make up for it" by sending volunteers to work on Milk's campaign.When told by friend Michael Wong of Jones' earlier backing of Agnos, Milk retorted "Well, **** him. I'll take his workers, but that's the game Jim Jones plays."Temple member Sharon Amos organized the Temple's leafleting campaign for Milk.Amos requested the delivery of 30,000 pamphlets and Milk's campaign delivered them to the Temple.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples..._San_Francisco

[Jenkay]

Originally Posted by JamestheFin

The better question is, what did Harvey Milk have to do with a murder-suicide cult?
Link: Peoples Temple in San Francisco - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From the same article:

"While the Temple aided some local politicians, it did not do so entirely without suspicion. For example, Harvey Milk felt that Temple members were odd and dangerous. When a Milk aide became wary of the Temple's large and imposing security force following a delivery of election pamphlets, Milk cautioned the aide "Make sure you're always nice to the Peoples Temple. If they ask you to do something, do it, and then send them a note thanking them for asking you to do it. They're weird and they're dangerous, and you never want to be on their bad side."[41] Jim Rivaldo, a political consultant and associate of Milk's said that, after later meetings at the Temple, he and Milk agreed that "there was something creepy about it."[85]
However, many politicians spoke at the San Francisco Temple, including Milk,[86] and Governor Jerry Brown.[30][21] By mid-1977, Willie Brown had visited the Temple perhaps a dozen times, some by invitation and some on his own.[87][88] Preliminary consideration was given by Governor Brown's administration to a statewide post for Jones before his flight to Guyana.[89]"

If you can't make your point without playing the "out of context cut-and-paste" game, your point is probably not worth making. True story.

[JamestheFin]

Originally Posted by Jenkay

If you can't make your point without playing the "out of context cut-and-paste" game, your point is probably not worth making. True story.

Actually, no. Those quotes make Milk appear more venal.

Here's more;

"Nine days prior to Milk’s death, more than 900 followers of Jim Jones—many of them campaign workers for Milk—perished in the most ghastly set of murder-suicides in modern history. Before the congregants of the Peoples Temple drank Jim Jones’s deadly Kool-Aid, Harvey Milk and much of San Francisco’s ruling class had already figuratively imbibed. Milk occasionally spoke at Jones’s San Francisco–based headquarters, promoted Jones through his newspaper columns, and defended the Peoples Temple from its growing legion of critics. Jones provided conscripted “volunteers” for Milk’s campaigns to distribute leaflets by the tens of thousands. Milk returned the favor by abusing his position of public trust on behalf of Jones’s criminal endeavors.


“Rev. Jones is widely known in the minority communities here and elsewhere as a man of the highest character, who has undertaken constructive remedies for social problems which have been amazing in their scope and effectiveness,” Supervisor Milk wrote President Jimmy Carter seven months before the Jonestown carnage. The purpose of Milk’s letter was to aid and abet his powerful supporter’s abduction of a six-year-old boy. Milk’s missive to the president prophetically continued: “Not only is the life of a child at stake, who currently has loving and protective parents in the Rev. and Mrs. Jones, but our official relations with Guyana could stand to be jeopardized, to the potentially great embarrassment of our State Department.” John Stoen, the boy whose actual parents Milk libeled to the president as purveyors of “bold-faced lies” and blackmail attempts, perished at Jonestown. This, the only remarkable episode in Milk’s brief tenure on the San Francisco board of supervisors, is swept under the rug by his hagiographers.

Link: Drinking Harvey Milk’s Kool-Aid by Daniel J. Flynn, City Journal 21 May 2009


Spin all you want, Milk is less gay rights hero, more venal enabler.