The U.S. Navy launches the USNS Harvey Milk in San Diego, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021.
Alex Gallardo/AP
disguise caption
toggle caption
Alex Gallardo/AP
The U.S. Navy launches the USNS Harvey Milk in San Diego, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021.
Alex Gallardo/AP
The U.S. Navy has launched and christened a ship named for the slain homosexual rights chief Harvey Milk, who served within the Navy throughout the Korean Conflict however was discharged after being questioned about his sexual orientation.
The 742 foot lengthy ship that launched from San Diego on Saturday is the second of six new vessels within the Navy’s fleet oiler program, which can assist replenish gasoline for different Navy ships which can be already out at sea. The Navy plans to finally have 20 ships in this system.
Naming the ship after an icon of the LGBTQ rights motion represents a symbolic milestone for the navy following a protracted historical past by which homosexual service members had been unable to serve brazenly. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro stated it helps proper the wrongs of the previous and exhibits a dedication to present and future LGBTQ service members. It is estimated that 100,000 veterans have been discharged from navy service due to their sexual orientation.
“Leaders like Harvey Milk taught us that range of backgrounds and experiences assist contribute to the energy and resolve of our nation. There is no such thing as a doubt that the longer term Sailors aboard this ship can be impressed by Milk’s life and legacy,” Del Toro said.
Stuart Milk, Milk’s nephew and the co-founder of the Harvey Milk Basis, spoke on the occasion and stated one in all his uncle’s desires was “for service members to serve with authenticity and never be compelled to cover who they had been and who they love.”
On this April 1977 file picture, San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk sits within the mayor’s workplace throughout the signing of town’s homosexual rights invoice in San Francisco. The Navy is naming a ship in honor of the late homosexual rights chief, who served within the Navy for 4 years earlier than he started a profession in San Francisco metropolis authorities.
STF/AP
disguise caption
toggle caption
STF/AP
On this April 1977 file picture, San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk sits within the mayor’s workplace throughout the signing of town’s homosexual rights invoice in San Francisco. The Navy is naming a ship in honor of the late homosexual rights chief, who served within the Navy for 4 years earlier than he started a profession in San Francisco metropolis authorities.
STF/AP
Harvey Milk served within the Navy from 1951-1955, together with throughout the Korean Conflict. His nephew stated the Navy offered the Milk household with the paperwork outlining his discharge and it was “lower than honorable.”
Milk says the Navy approached him about reversing his uncle’s dishonorable discharge posthumously, however that he determined towards it as a reminder that not everybody was handled with honor.
“We now have to show our historical past to forestall ourselves from going backwards,” Stuart Milk stated Saturday. “This navy ship sends an vital message to the world.”
In 1977, after his Navy profession, Milk turned the primary brazenly homosexual elected official in California when he received a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. However he was assassinated only one yr later by a former metropolis supervisor.
The 2 sponsors of the ship had been Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Paula Neira, a Navy veteran and the scientific program director on the Heart for Transgender Well being at Johns Hopkins College.
Neira christened the ship by by breaking a bottle of champagne on the hull, which is a Navy custom.
All six new ships are a part of a program named after the late civil rights chief and former Georgia Congressman John Lewis. The 5 different ships within the fleet are additionally named for leaders who championed civil rights: former Supreme Courtroom Chief Justice Earl Warren, Robert F. Kennedy, Lucy Stone, Sojourner Reality and Lewis.
