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U. S. Navy to Name Ship After Harvey Milk Years After Kicking Him Out for Being Gay

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Like Alan Turing becoming the face of the 50 pound note in the United Kingdom, there’s a bittersweet malaise that accompanies these posthumous reparations to the stories of our gay forefathers and heroes.

Like the most recent one saying the U.S. Navy is planning to name a newly commissioned ship after gay activist and politician Harvey Milk.

Milk was dishonorably discharged from the Navy for being gay.

The Washington Post reports: “By the time Harvey Milk’s supervisors in the U.S. Navy officially questioned him about his sexuality, he had graduated from officer school and served as a diving officer on a submarine rescue ship during the Korean War. Then his superiors caught him in a park that was popular with gay men, his nephew said. The sighting raised questions about Milk’s sexual orientation in an era when the military banned gay, lesbian and bisexual service members. Milk was forced to resign.

In a move that signaled an about-face on the issue of gay rights, the Navy on Friday began to construct the USNS Harvey Milk, a fleet oiler that will provide fuel to ships and aircraft. The Navy announced in 2016 that Milk’s name would appear on a ship, along with other civil rights leaders, including abolitionist Sojourner Truth and suffragist Lucy Stone.

Read the full story here.

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