Harvey Milk to Receive Presidential Medal of Freedom

butnotmine:

President Barack Obama plans to award America’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to Harvey Milk, one of the country’s first openly gay elected officials. The award will be accepted at a White House ceremony August 12 by Stuart Milk, the nephew of the late San Francisco Supervisor and civil rights activist.
…
American tennis great Billy Jean King, who is openly lesbian, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who has championed LGBT equality throughout his political career, also will receive the Presidential Medal of Honor at the August 12 ceremony.

(via rendit: via notthatkindagay)

I heard this news this morning, and throughout the day it’s been sinking in for me just how much this matters and how much it affects me.  Also on the list of those to receive such an award this year is Desmond Tutu.  (Whom I LOVE!)  So that’s the type of list we’re talking about here.

This is no small thing.  And yes, President Obama still needs to take leadership on many policy issues, and yes, this is, in part, a symbolic gesture, but by no means an insignificant one.  LGBT people may not yet be equal citizens in the eyes of the law, but a brave, hysterical, honest, opera-loving, very human man, who knew he was risking his life, has had his story turned into an award winning movie that educated the nation about his work, and is now being honored with the highest award the President of the United States can give.

I have sat often, quite recently, in the office where this man was murdered.  A lesbian now inhabits the office (a woman mentored by one of the men Harvey mentored and who played a large role in my politicization and understanding of my role as a lesbian with political responsibility), and we have our present day long conversations about this or that political implication or work we are doing and choices we make about our lives.  (Note to self:  OMG there’s so a play waiting to be written about our conversations in that office and the presence of Harvey’s ghost listening to all that we talk about and weighing in with his unique thoughts and humor!  If only I had the time to get on that right now!  Further note to self:  Write that play in fifteen years or so.)

The chain and the process continues over all these years, through the work Harvey started.  But back, not too many years ago, Harvey was just a gay man with a lot of chutzpah, who went to work every day on the streets and inside San Francisco’s City Hall.  He died penniless, and not well known outside of San Francisco, and now he continues to be written into the highest levels of historical recognition and appreciation.  I would say Harvey has done a damn more impressive job of “giving us hope” than he ever could have imagined he would.