The cruelest thing ever.

The Republican Party has chosen Pride Month to remove Harvey Milk's name from a Navy vessel. Because—to hell with anyone who isn't white, male and straight.

Jun 04, 2025

This website is mostly devoted to local issues.

So pardon me for abandoning that principle for a sliver.

In case you didn’t see this, yesterday multiple outlets reported that Pete Hegseth, the dude-who-looked-like-a-soldier-to-Donald Trump-and-therefore-now-serves-as-our-defense-secretary-despite-no-qualifications, is planning on renaming the oiler ship presently known as USNS Harvey Milk.

Why? Because Milk—a gay rights superhero, as well as a Navy veteran who served in the Korean War—was not straight. And if you’re not straight, you can’t be worthy of an honor. Just like if you’re Black, or a woman, or trans, or pretty much anything other than being a white Christian male … you can’t possibly have earned the position you held/hold. Because … DEI. Or white power. Or something.

So now Milk’s name will be stripped from a ship. By a dude appointed by a president who received five military deferments for his nonexistent bone spurs. By a dude who failed to visit a military cemetery because it was raining. By a dude who said POWs weren’t heroes because “they were captured.”

This, from Military.com …

My head is exploding.

In case you don’t know (I’m guessing Hegseth knew nothing of the legacy), Milk was murdered on Nov. 27, 1978, when—while serving on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors—he was gunned down by a disgruntled and disgraced former colleague named Dan White. He was 48, and the multi-death tragedy remains one of the most horrific acts of political violence in United States history. To this day, it defines one of the city of San Francisco’s darkest periods.

So much of what’s going on makes me mad—but nothing gets to me like this degree of raw-level cruelty. You’re removing Harvey Milk’s name from a ship? Literally, that’s what you’re choosing to do? And is it because he didn’t serve? Oh, he did. Is it because he quit the Navy? Oh, he was forced out because he was gay. Is it because he lived a dishonorable post-military life? Oh, the opposite. Sooo … it’s literally just because he was gay?

Yup.

Digest that, please: Harvey Milk’s name is being removed from a vessel (by a man with five military deferments) because he was gay.

And this is what the modern GOP has decided to represent. Has decided to prioritize. On a national level, it’s removing the names of icons like Milk and Tubman from ships. It’s cutting funding to programs that help low-income citizens. It’s attacking universities that don’t kneel before the king. On a local level, it’s Sonja Shaw proudly berating a trans high school athlete; it’s Chad Williams damning librarians to hell; it’s Lisa Davis making a mockery of a nonpartisan school board.

I actually don’t understand what happened to us. How it happened to us. Somewhat recently, a high school student interviewed me about my experiences as a New Yorker during 9.11. She asked a series of excellent questions, but one stood out …

On the day the Twin Towers were attacked, I was a 29-year-old Sports Illustrated writer. A colleague was holding a golf tournament in New Jersey, so a gaggle of us decided to carpool. While heading for the Lincoln Tunnel, we noticed a gathering on a nearby street corner. When we pulled up, the people were all—collectively—staring toward the Trade Center and, specifically, a gaping, fiery hole in Tower One. I will never forget than moment, or emerging on the other side of the tunnel and realizing both buildings were aflame, and that this was an act of terror.

But, as nightmarish as it all become, the aftermath was … remarkable.

Or, as I told the high school student:

In our grief, we bonded. People of all races, ages, ethnicities, sexualities. For a brief period in time, nothing else mattered but love and collective healing. We were New Yorkers. We would move forward. We would get through this together.

In fact, I only recall one Big Apple denizen saying anything contrary to the spirit of cohesion …

All these years later, nothing has changed. Donald Trump is as cruel and selfish as ever, only his disease of dickishness—once confined to the very few—now spreads like E. coli across this once-remarkable land.

We were a nation praised for its inclusiveness.

We are now a nation yanking Harvey Milk’s name from a vessel.

For the crime of being gay.