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By Walt Zlotow
In life and death the US Navy relished punishing Harvey Milk for being gay.
In 1955, Milk was ‘voluntarily forced’ out of the Navy he had faithfully served for four years for that offense. In the 1970s Milk went on to become a national symbol of LGBTQ+ political empowerment as one of the first prominent gay political leaders. In 1977 he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. A year later he was assassinated along with San Francisco Mayor George Moscone in a homophobic hate crime.
Sixty-seven years after firing Milk, the Navy made symbolic amends by naming a fleet replenishment oiler the USNS Harvey Milk.
But it didn’t take long for Trump’s Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth to demand Milk’s ship name be consigned to Davy Jones locker. According to Hegseth the Navy cannot have a gay rights leader’s name on a ship that must only bear names befitting the military’s “warrior culture”.
Hegseth is clueless that the real warrior here is Milk; who was a warrior for inclusion and human decency, qualities totally MIA in the damaged psyche of Pete Hegseth.
Harvey Milk served his country. Pete Hegseth only serves his president.
Walt Zlotow, Glen Ellyn IL
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View Comments
Hegseth was a presenter at FOX News - is that where he learned to hate ?
I have this strange feeling that Hesgeth is a closet Homosexual.J.Edgar Hoover, anyone?
Pete 'Pretty Boy' Hegseth was a hit with his fellow infantrymen, regularly indulging in the circle jerks used to relieve the tensions of living under the stressful conditions of being an unwelcome invader in Iraq and Afghanistan. His alcoholism is an artefact of, as Harry Lime alludes, his unacknowledged homosexuality. As demonstrated by his now third marriage, he is incapable of living in a committed relationship with a woman, and is on record as saying [quote] "I'm a fucked-up individual," and one who only feels comfortable in the company of other men, particularly if they're in uniform and carrying military hardware.
Sounds like a perfect profile to be the Secretary of Defense for that fucked-up country, the USA.
As for TM's question, the answer would be a firm no... he would have been taught to hate whilst in the military (if not beforehand) - he also served at Guantanamo Bay, where hatred of the inmates was second nature to the military goons assigned to that wretched location, along with the typically racist and venomous attributes that were du jour amongst American servicemen in the conflicts mentioned above.