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‘USS Harvey Milk’: US Navy Will Name Ship After Gay Rights Icon
Licked your very last Harvey Milk stamp while mailing out your gas bill? Not to worry. The gay icon and legendary San Francisco politician is about to have a Navy ship named after him, if reports are to be believed.
Related: 10 Things About 2016 That Would Make Harvey Milk Beam From Ear To Ear
USNI News obtained a Congressional notification signed by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus that strongly suggests he’s sneakily planning to name a Military Sealift Command fleet oiler USNS Harvey Milk.
The move will likely come to pass; Mabus has already named ships after several civil rights heroes, and the idea of naming a ship after the gay-rights activist has been floating around for several years. The USNS Harvey Milk would follow in the footsteps of USNS Medgar Evers (T-AKE-13) and USNS Cesar Chavez (T-AKE-14).
Related: Giving Us Hope: Harvey Milk’s Top 7 Quotes
Raised by a Navy family, Milk was a diving officer in San Diego for the Korean war until he was honorably discharged as a lieutenant junior grade. Shortly after, he became the first openly gay politician in California to be elected to office. Infact, when he was shot to death in 1978 , he was still wearing his U.S. Navy diver’s belt buckle.
According to nephew Stuart Milk, naming a ship after Harvey Milk “will further send a green light to all the brave men and women who serve our nation that honesty, acceptance and authenticity are held up among the highest ideals of our military.”
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