The Navy has christened the USNS Harvey Milk, a fleet replenishment oiler named after a Navy veteran and one of many nation’s first brazenly homosexual elected officers.
“This nice ship honors #NavyDiver & #CivilRights activist Harvey Milk who was compelled out of the service as a result of unfair insurance policies,” the Workplace of the Navy Secretary tweeted Saturday. “Due to him, as we speak our #LGBTQ #Sailors & #Marines serve honorably as their real selves.”
Former Navy officer Paula Neira, medical program director for the John Hopkins Middle for Transgender Well being, smashed a bottle of champagne on the ship’s bow earlier than the launch Saturday into San Diego Bay.
Milk was 48 years outdated and a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors when he and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone had been assassinated in Metropolis Corridor on Nov. 27, 1978. The shooter, former supervisor Dan White, had been angered when Moscone declined to reappoint him to the board.
Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2009.
Milk joined the Navy in 1951 throughout the Korean Struggle, serving 4 years as an officer and dive teacher. Throughout his time within the navy, LGBTQ service members weren’t allowed to acknowledge their sexuality. Milk’s nephew, Stuart Milk, says his uncle was compelled to resign from the Navy as a result of he was homosexual.
LGBTQ definitions:Words every good ally should know
Stuart Milk and Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro attended the launch ceremony.
“The secretary of the Navy wanted to be right here as we speak, not simply to amend the wrongs of the previous, however to present inspiration to all of our LGBTQ group leaders who served within the Navy, in uniform as we speak and within the civilian workforce as nicely,” Del Toro mentioned. “To inform them that we’re dedicated to them sooner or later.”
The ship will present “underway replenishment” of gas to Navy ships at sea and jet gas for plane assigned to plane carriers. The ship is about 677 ft lengthy and holds 180,000 barrels of aviation and diesel gas.
The ship’s conventional “sponsors” are Neira and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Feinstein was in Metropolis Corridor when Milk and Moscone had been shot and a short while later publicly introduced their deaths.
Feinstein was unable to attend the launch, however mentioned in a letter learn on the ceremony that the ship “will carry a wealthy legacy of civic management.”
“When the Harvey Milk sails, she is going to ship a really robust message each domestically and across the globe to all people that believes in freedom and justice and liberty,” Neira mentioned. “That there’s a place for you on this household.”
Catholic college: A gay teacher in New York was firedafter marrying his partner
