What Harvey Milk would tell the lgbt community to do

Harvey Milk got his due today as his nephew, Stuart Milk, accepted his Presidential Medal of Freedom. The video is below:



It's interesting to me that a lot of lgbts have speculated what Harvey Milk would have said to President Obama had he been alive to accept this award.

I prefer to think that Milk wouldn't say anything to President Obama because he would be too busy talking to us.

I would like to think that he would tell us to not stop challenging those who won't give us our basic rights. And to do all we can to bring attention to the fact that we are human beings who deserve respect.

And I think he would tell us to continue to fight in every way possible, whether it be by this weekend's Kiss-In, fighting for ENDA, to end Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and to pass hate crimes legislation.

Personally, I would like to think that he would tell me to continue to go about my work exposing the distorted and discredited studies of the religious right.

But most of all, I think he would tell us to love and respect ourselves and each other because that is where it all begins. If we do not respect each other and ourselves, then we have no right demanding it from heterosexuals.

A gay bashing victim blames himself, militia groups are on the rise, and other Wednesday midday news briefs

A Victim Takes the Blame - Oh please. If people who flirt are allowed to be beaten up, then let me to arm heterosexual ladies with some bricks.

Officials See Rise In Militia Groups Across US - Pay attention, folks.

High-ranking Dems rub shoulders; Maine anti-gays rub desperation lamp - President Obama takes picture with Congressman Barney Frank and his partner. Apocalypse imminent.

Gay Sex Causes Swine Flu - Now I know some gay men can be pigs, but this is ridiculous.

Low-life teabagger protestor tears up poster of Rosa Parks at health care town hall - I guess they figured Rosa Parks was a Muslim Socialist Fascist Nazi Kenyan . . . oh never mind. These people are nuts.

And now, a double dish of crazy brought to you by those same folks who cannot stand the lgbt community:

Janet Porter Reveals The Coming American Genocide

Farah: Obama's Grandmother Was Really His Mother

I'm going to say this and I don't care who gets offended.

I haven't seen white folks this upset since the verdict of the O.J. Simpson trial. The election of Barack Obama as president has sent some of them off the deep end. And I think it's way past time to start praying that this situation doesn't end tragically for this country.

Religious right tries to smear Harvey Milk on his day of honor

I spoke too soon yesterday.

Religious right members won't even let us have one day or one honor for our people without throwing their ugly hands into the mix in order to mess it up.

Family Research Council spokesperson Peter(I would like to see gays exported from the United States instead of being imported)Sprigg has written a nasty piece (which I am sure will be picked up) for World Net Daily:

When President Obama today awards a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom to Harvey Milk, it may mark the first time in history that the nation's highest civilian award has been granted primarily on the basis of someone's sex life.

. . . But Milk is famous only for winning one election, being murdered – and having sex with men. In his "gay rights" stump speech, Milk once said, "Like every other group, we must be judged by our leaders and by those who are themselves gay." What can we conclude about the homosexual movement in America based on the life of Harvey Milk? I recently decided to find out by reading "gay journalist" Randy Shilts' 1982 biography of Milk, "The Mayor of Castro Street."

Spriggs proceeds to break down his version of Milk's sex life with the panache and tenacity of a repressed religious leader going into detail about gay sex to shocked parishoners.

Maybe he is taking lessons from his friend Peter LaBarbera.

And when Sprigg isn't grousing about Milk's alleged sex life, he launches other unsubstantiated charges against Milk - i.e. he was anti-lesbian, he faked a hate crime, etc.

It's almost sad, really.

Sprigg's attack on Milk is the equivalent of a racist mentioning the Watts Riot of the 1960s without talking about the conditions that led up to it.

Harvey Milk's Presidential Medal of Freedom will not be posthumously awarded to him for his "sex life." And to minimize how he positively affected the American experience reveals more about Sprigg's homophobia than Milk's "sex life."

Harvey Milk is receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom because he stood up unashamed to be who he was. He demanded that he not be tolerated, not be accepted, but be respected.

And he also demanded in his own way that lgbts not accept what homophobes give us but to take what belongs to us - our God-given right to pursue the American Dream.

I guess I should be angry at Sprigg, but I'm not. Nothing he or any of his cohorts can say will ruin this moment for me.

Harvey Milk was an American hero and today he will be honored as such. He will be the first (hopefully not the last) gay man to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Milk is not receiving this honor because he was a famous actor who happened to be gay, or a famous musician who happened to be gay.

And he is certainly not receiving this honor for his alleged sex life.

Milk is receiving this honor as a openly gay man who challenged the notion that lgbts are unhappy people with hedonistic lives. His honor puts all of us out of the darkness of the smoky bars and into the front room of the White House, if you will.

I happen to like that move.

Milk was a diamond and no amount of dirt can remove his luster or the luster of this moment.

So nice try, Sprigg. But no sale.