Thirty years ago today, May 20, the love of my life walked into my office and rearranged my world forever.
Ours was an immediate love affair. We joyously shared 10 years of our young adult lives together, before I lost Doug Jackson to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. When we met in 1980, San Francisco was quite alive. The sexual revolution was in full bloom. Our community was much younger, as individuals and in terms of infrastructure. Stonewall was not yet a dozen years past and the San Francisco Pride Parade was just 10 years old. There was no AIDS foundation, no AIDS Emergency Fund, no Project Open Hand, and no Project Inform. Our LGBT Community Center had barely been imagined and the Castro Country Club had not yet been conceived.
Politically we were just taking our first steps. We had two very active and engaged LGBT Democratic clubs and Supervisor Harry Britt was the only openly gay elected official in town. Our future representation on the San Francisco Board of Education, the Community College Board of Trustees, the state Assembly, and state Senate was merely a dream. The thought that we could fully and openly participate in civic and political activities was a radical notion. At that time, it was a fairly recent decision by the American Psychiatric Association to no longer consider homosexuality a mental disorder. It had been only three years since California amended state law so that consensual adult sexual relations between two men or two women were legal. We would have to wait another two decades before this state outlawed discrimination in housing and employment based on sexual orientation. So the idea that queer folk could run for and be elected to public office was yet to be embraced.
One individual changed all of that and envisioned a very different and much brighter future for our community. His name is Harvey Milk. This Saturday, May 22, the state of California will celebrate for the first time Harvey Milk Day as statutorily enacted. This is the first statewide day honoring an LGBT individual anywhere in this country.
Why is this important? I think there is value for each of us to reflect upon how Harvey's work, leadership, and courage have affected our own lives. It is hard to imagine today the risks to which Harvey exposed himself simply by being out in his public work. He lived constantly with death threats and knew that anyone at any moment could take his life. Yet he would not be deterred and he would not be silenced. Harvey even left a recorded message saying that "should a bullet ever enter my brain, let it shatter every closet door." Of course, that is exactly how he was assassinated. Harvey Milk literally gave his life so that I and hundreds of others could honorably and safely serve in elected office.
I have often wondered why our Equality California-sponsored legislation, which created this day of special significance for Harvey Milk, passed on a party line vote (with exactly one Republican exception) and why it was so vehemently opposed by the radical religious right. What could be wrong with officially recognizing a true American hero who fought for the respect, dignity and validation of all human life �" for seniors, the disabled, for children, for working people? Why would we not want to remember California's first openly gay elected official who promoted a message of hope that no one need be ashamed of who she/he is or who he/she loves? Harvey's values are the best of American values. The only answer to these questions that I can come up with is that our opposition still believes that they can drag us all back to a more hateful, dangerous, and closeted 20th century. They seem to think that by denying us our history, they can deny us our future �" Harvey's envisioned brighter future.
At a recent Queer Youth Lobby Day in Sacramento where hundreds of students come to the Capitol to lobby legislators and learn the legislative process, I met a 15-year-old young woman. She lives with her lesbian mother who for years has struggled with drug addiction. She had recently come out herself as lesbian, and her family life was obviously difficult and her support systems few. She deals with low self-esteem and struggles with her studies. One piece of legislation that the youth learned about and then promoted in legislative offices later that day was the Harvey Milk Day bill. My young friend had never heard of Harvey or his saga until that day. Her spirits soared and she was visibly elated when I spoke with her at the end of her visit to the Capitol. She told me that she never knew an LGBT person could be any different from her troubled mother. Learning about Harvey led her to believe that she could do and accomplish anything she dreamed. Harvey's message of hope had inspired yet another young life, as it will thousands more every May 22.
Happy 80th birthday, Harvey! Your light shines brighter with each passing day.
Mark Leno represents portions of San Francisco, Marin, and Sonoma counties in the state Senate.