America was shocked when Dan White, a recently resigned Supervisor of the City of San Francisco, murdered Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.
Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man elected to public office in San Francisco.
He got the city to pass a stringent Gay Rights ordinance.
He was a hero to the large Gay community in SF, and to many others as well. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.
Dan White was only convicted of manslaughter rather than murder, using what became known as the "twinkie defense" - his attorneys did not in fact argue that eating twinkies CAUSED the depression White claimed led to his violent acts, but were rather a symptom of that depression.
But this is not about Dan White.
It is that we should remember a time of violence in America - violence against gays and those that spoke for them, violence in our politics (something still too real, as the recent shooter at the White House demonstrates), physical violence that too often follows the inordinate amount of verbal violence in our political discourse.
Harvey Milk had once said (h/t, Zinn Education Project), "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door in the country."
There are still too many closets, and far too many still in them. There is still too much fear.
Yet Harvey Milk made a difference, in his living as well as his dying.
In his living:
In his dying:
And being honored by President Obama:
I am straight. I am human. I remember Harvey Milk, and I honor his memory.
What about you?