40 years after the assassination of Harvey Milk, LGBTQ candidates find success
In this month's midterm elections, Colorado elected the nation's first openly gay governor. Voters across the country sent a record number of LGBT candidates to Congress.
These victories come 40 years after the assassination of the first openly gay elected official in California — Harvey Milk.
Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. In 1978, under his urging, the city council passed a gay rights ordinance that protected gay people from being fired from their jobs. His advocacy angered many.
On Nov. 27, 1978, Supervisor Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a former police officer and former city supervisor who had clashed with Milk over LGBTQ issues.
Milk's murder transformed national politics.
The success of LGBTQ candidates in the midterm elections would have been hard to imagine four decades ago when Milk first won office. In California at that time, a conservative state senator named John Briggs was pushing a statewide ballot measure, Proposition 6, to ban gay and lesbian teachers.
Harvey Milk led the fight against the proposition, debating Briggs around the state. That November, voters overwhelmingly defeated the Briggs initiative. Briggs himself, now 88, later renounced his position.
But three weeks later, Moscone and Milk were dead.
It was a kind of political awakening for many who came of age in the years that followed. Today, the seat Milk held when he was killed is occupied by another openly gay man, Rafael Mandelman.
"As someone who was 5 years old when he was shot," says Mandelman, "I am continually grateful not just for Harvey but for the folks of that generation who really did change the world."
At: http://www.cpr.org/news/npr-story/40-years-after-the-assassination-of-harvey-milk-lgbt-candidates-find-success
San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Havey Milk during their brief tenures.
Their murder, 40 years ago today, at the hands of an opponent helped lead to much of the political change Milk had sought in life.
= new reply since forum marked as read
