When I was younger, I had no idea who Harvey Milk was. Maybe hearing his story and knowing that he was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States would have helped me – even if it was in a minor way – as a bullied gay adolescent. Instead of learning LGBT history and looking up to appropriate role models, I had plenty of time to learn the meaning of the word “faggot” and just how dangerous it is to be gay in many parts of America. In the days before Lady Gaga, Glee, and “It Gets Better” (I’m 22 and I’m talking like I’m 80, but maybe that just shows how far we’ve come in such a short time), role models were few and far between for gay teens.
That’s why I was thrilled when California made May 22, Harvey Milk’s birthday, “Harvey Milk Day.” That’s why I was overjoyed when the California Senate passed SB 48, which would require public schools to include LGBT history in social science curricula. As we face an LGBT teen suicide epidemic, it’s so important for our LGBT teens to know their history – to know the movement’s accomplishments, how far we’ve come, and who helped get us here. When I first developed an interest in gay history in college, I realized how little I knew about it. I could tell you all about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, but nothing about Marty Robinson or Stonewall. The extent of my education was the movie Milk. This is a largely ignored area of history, a proverbial ocean of forgotten events and people, and there’s no good reason for that. How can our LGBT teens have hope for their future when they aren’t even given the opportunity to learn where our movement came from?
Of course, I’m not an idiot – I know why I knew nothing about LGBT history. Because of shit like this:
An attempt by California legislators to honor the ground broken by one of the first openly gay elected officials in US history is, of course, turned into a malicious attempt to corrupt our children. No parental consent! 5-year-olds being exposed to Milk, a “sexual role model” (WTF does that even mean?). Honoring a “sexual predator” (again, an attempt to equate gay people with pedophiles…the anti-gay right wing’s bag of tricks really is quite limited). A danger to our children and the community at large. Indoctrinating our children to join the “homosexual, bisexual, transsexual agenda.”
It’s all in there. Not to mention the rest of the usual bigotry – the claims about the physical “dangers” of the “gay lifestyle,” a photo of an LGBT “street fair,” and the call to action to save our children.
And you might notice how the ad ominously places “exercises” in quotation marks when talking about how students will celebrate Harvey Milk Day. Well, if you go to SaveCalifornia’s website (I’m all about links, but I’m not linking to that site – Google will serve the purpose if you feel so inclined to visit, otherwise you can look at quotes from the leader here), you’ll see what “exercises” they want you to believe will take place in schools in commemoration of Harvey Milk. Everything from “mock homosexual weddings” to “cross-dressing contests.” Really? Not that this is a new idea, of course.
The bottom line is that these people can’t be reasoned with. Their lies know no limit. They just have to be defeated. Our LGBT youth depend on it. These bigots will stop at nothing to marginalize our LGBT youth, make them feel less than equal (indeed, less than human), enable their bullies, and deny them any meaningful understanding of their history, not to mention any optimism for their future. This is the stuff of which LGBT teen suicide is made. Harvey Milk Day is pretty fucking important.
I look forward to a day when LGBT history is mainstream history – and when LGBT historical figures take their place in the history books next to the other great giants of history.