Posted on 07/28/2016 9:04:04 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The United States Navy will be naming one of their ships after gay rights icon and San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, according to a report by the U.S. Naval Institute, which cites a Congressional notice obtained by USNI News.
The July 14 notice, which was signed by Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, indicates that he plans to name a planned Military Sealift Command fleet oiler, USNS Harvey Milk, according to USNI.
The ship is reportedly being built by General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego, California.
A Department of the Navy spokesman did not have a comment on the report.
Milk, who moved from New York to settle in San Francisco in the seventies, was elected to the SF Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California. In 1972, he and his partner Scott Smith – portrayed by James Franco in the film “Milk” – opened Castro Camera on 575 Castro Street, which he operated until his assassination in 1978. His involvement in San Francisco’s gay rights movement earned him the name “Mayor of Castro Street.”
He joined the U.S. Navy during the Korean War and served on the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake (ASR-13) as a diving officer in San Diego. Milk came from a Navy family. He was honorably discharged from service as a lieutenant junior grade, according to USNI.
On Nov. 27, 1978, Milk was shot inside San Francisco City Hall. He was wearing his U.S. Navy diver’s belt buckle at the time, according to the report.
Ever since the 2011 repeal of the Department of Defense’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, California lawmakers have pushed to name a ship after Milk.
“This action by the U.S. Secretary of the Navy will further send a green light to all the brave men and women who serve our nation that honesty, acceptance and authenticity are held up among the highest ideals of our military,” Milk’s nephew Stuart Milk told the San Diego LGBT Weekly in 2012.
On Thursday, San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener, who signed a resolution urging the Navy to name a ship after Milk, applauded the Navy's apparent decision.
“This is an incredible day for the LGBT community and for our country. As a gay man and a San Franciscan, I'm incredibly proud that the Navy is honoring Harvey Milk — and the entire LGBT community — by naming a ship after him," Weiner said.
"This momentous decision sends a powerful message around the world about who we are as a country and the values we hold," he said. "When Harvey Milk served in the military, he couldn't tell anyone who he truly was. Now our country is telling the men and women who serve, and the entire world, that we honor and support people for who they are. Harvey Milk's strength continues to reverberate throughout our city, our country, and the world.”
I am not laughing.
I think this is a sick way to destroy military unit cohisivness.
Navy to name ship after pedophile predator....Obama’s america.
Bi-sexual Baby.
Check out Cary and Randolph Scott.
http://www.homohistory.com/2013/07/cary-grant-and-randolph-scott-hollywood.html
Tony Curtis.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000348/news?year=2002
Your post is more ironic than you thought.
nothing I can say or do will change your mind. So this will be my last attempt to respond... 
to your view that www.homohistory.com and a commenter's post on /www.imdb.com are undisputable sources of the entire lives of Cary Grant and Tony Curtis--
I agree with you! (Sorry about my tasteless joke.)
Regards,
Any sailors assigned to such a vessel will probably have to fight their way out of bars, when on shore leave, or remain on board.
This is not just offensive. It is a flagrant denial of common sense.
No. One does not condone the Milk murder. But neither can one condone the murder of common sense; putting the innocent unnecessarily in harm's way.
Thing is, it it GREAT fodder for humor and ribbing...one can only imagine what Marines are saying to Sailors upon hearing of this plan...
Heck...I find the jokes funny too (naming an oiler! Really? One of those things that does make you believe it is not only deliberate, but malignantly so) but man, it makes me so angry I can’t laugh.
And that is not a good thing!
There’s PLENTY of proof of this stuff, not jut the two pieces of evidence I gave you.
If you want to know, there’s plenty of evidence out there, easily found.
If you don’t care to investigate for yourself, so be it. Doesn’t really matter anyway.
Nevertheless, your post is more ironic than you thought.
I'll add something else to this. Many families, shipmates, and former crew members, of past ships often spend years writing letters and petitioning the Sec of Navy for a ships name. It's happened time and time again that some high ranking politician walks in and puts some politicans favorite at the front of the line. It even happened with the USS Gerald R Ford I think former VA Sen Warner was the culprit there.
Harvey Milk was a disgusting person unworthy of any such honor.
Research Tony Curtis appearing (in Chicago) live on the Roe Conn show (WLS-890).
Tony was in a wheelchair during this live appearance and he was hitting on Cristina Filliagi soooo damn hard, it made me uncomfortable just listening.
Tony Curtis, a fag? Gadzooks that hilarious!
You are exactly correct and that was the intent: to help degrade the effectiveness of our Navy and its supporting forces.
Milk's name wasn't chosen because he was an outstanding politician that effectively supported military causes.
Nor was his name chosen because he was an outstanding veteran who also happened to come from a Navy family. If that were the case, he would have been on a list with several million others.
No, his name was chosen for one reason. To think our federal government would name a national structure to celebrate that reason demonstrates the peril facing our culture.
Trump is going to be extremely busy during his term in office.
Exactly, cva66snipe, exactly. That is it in a nutshell.
We joke about the poor bubbleheads who have to serve on the USS Jimmy Carter, but this takes it all to another level entirely.
No wonder the Navy named it for an oiler.
Yes. Joe Boucher hit the nail on the head as you did, pointing out that this was done for a specific political reason, and that it indicates a rot in society that places the Republic in peril.
This is insane, I am not that old, but I never thought, in my life, I would see things like this. I thought I might be dead and long gone before things like this happened, but it feels like we are on a roller coaster going downhill with JATO packs attached to the back.
Milk was a commissioned officer of the United States Navy. He was the Diving officer on USS Kittiwake, later he taught at the Navy diving and salvage school. yes he was a homo. That is your hang up. He served, he did his duty, just as thousands of other men served and did their duty, never firing a shot at an enemy. I am one those, 25 years in our Navy, a cold warrior, never having seen combat. My old man did serve on a carrier in WWII, as a matter of fact is was sunk by the Japanese. He survived, spend the rest of the war on a Battleship, then did 2 years on a CVE during the Korean war. We have named ships after almost anyone on the planet, including people who never served in the armed forces, and some that were not American citizens. So What.
I was in the navy for 21 years, including six months near Baghdad. I think about 90% of navy members and veterans, I know, will hate that ship’s name.
Bravo Zulu!!! 100%...
Better take that up with old Jim, Clet... 
as his gaydar is powered up to several billion volts and pegging his dial big time--
Hey Bendy, there really is not much dispute about Curtis and Grant - it’s pretty common knowledge. Do you know what bi-sexual is? Being with a girl or even a wife doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not a queer also.
Do you get that Mick Jagger and David Bowie are/were both queers even though both of them are/were married?
Get a clue pal. Unfortunately there’s more and it looks like it will get worse.
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