The Big Milk

I just went to see the movie 'Milk', which is the story of gay rights activist Harvey Milk who, along with the then mayor of San Francisco, was gunned down in City Hall in 1978. I had known who Harvey Milk was because of living in San Francisco but had never really gotten to know his story and journey very well.

Let me say, if you haven't seen this movie, go. It's an amazing, inspiring movie that also left me thinking. I sat and cried a few times throughout the movie, not just because his story and his path to that day in 1978 moved me to tears, but well, for many reasons.

One was understanding just a little more how I get to stand on the shoulders of those gone before me. I haven't had the shit beaten out of me in a riot, or been arrested for my sexuality in a bar or on the street or minding my own business, or had my family hate me because of my life. I have been shunned by a community of people, I believed were my friends and family, in the name of religion. I have hidden my choice and my life because of fear. But I have marched and been proudly out now for a number of years. I have that luxury because of the passion and the zealousness that people like Harvey Milk had. He lost everything, including his life, because he believed in the equality of gay people so much. He was willing to lay it all down to see that realized.

I cried because of proposition 8 and the fact that it passed here in California 30 years after the death and achievements of Harvey Milk and his crew. It astounded me because 30 years later, people here STILL haven't learned. Bigots, religious zealots, prejudice and hatred STILL have so much power in law AND religion is STILL interfering in the lives of people who don't welcome it, don't believe it and have never asked for it.

I am not a citizen here but believe me, proposition 8 effects me in so many ways...as it does ALL of us, regardless of where we live...and even if it didn't...I would like to think that I would still be outraged by it's passing because of the unconstitutional, disrespectful, downright nastiness of the proposition in the first place.

Anita Bryant was one of the religious people who went on a campaign to prevent gay equality in the 70's. As Harvey Milk became a spokesperson for gay rights, Anita Bryant became the spokesperson for the Christian fundamentalists in this country who saw homosexuality as being an abomination, against God's law and the natural order of things. The fact that she could lead such a campaign whilst speaking of God's love never ceases to amaze me. That somehow one has given right to the other.

As part of her crusade she made statements of belief such as: "If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters." You know...I would be doubly fucked....I am gay AND I bite my nails. I found it interesting to read that after her world began to collapse...her failed marriage (she was shunned by believers of her own religion because of this), her loss of income and career (she was/is a singer), her failed businesses and bankruptcy...that she started to apologize for the anti gay things she had said & done and her new attitude towards life became 'live and let live'. I wonder if Jerry Falwell and her are still mates.

I had a moment today were I wondered really, how many kids committed suicide because of the statements she made..that parents trusted and believed and communities upheld as truth and went on witch hunts baring placards pronouncing to the world.

'The fact is that more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, THAT my friends, is true perversion.'

'Hope will never be silent' - Harvey Milk

xxM