Harvey Milk's Birthday, Belated

Yesterday was Harvey Milk’s birthday. Bill in Portland Maine reminded me of the event in his tribute to Harvey Milk in his diary over at DailyKos, Cheers and Jeers, which he posts every weekday Monday through Friday.

Bill in Portland, Maine's Tribute to Harvey Milk

I have been a follower of BinPM since my early days at DailyKos. I believe it was his daily entries that got me hooked at DailyKos. You might enjoy his writing, too.

The centerpiece of Bill’s post was Milk’s call to be hopeful. Before Milk’s murder in the San Francisco City Hall in the fall of 1978 he was an out gay man from the Castro who won one of the positions for supervisor of the City of San Francisco in the late 1970's.

I felt Milk’s call for hope resonating even more loudly yesterday when crazy anti gay preachers like the one in North Carolina who called for us to be fenced in and starved. I felt Milk’s call resonate in my own life as I reflected on my own journey of "coming out". I felt how important that call for hope is today for young and maybe not so young gay, lesbian, bi, and transgendered people as they mature into their own identities. I even felt that call for hope as the Roman Catholic Church, particularly the cardinals and bishops of the United States, struggle with their own demons of bigotry and ignorance.

So, I repost the heart of BinPM tribute to Harvey Milk commemorating Milk’s birthday yesterday along with an icon of Robert Lentz honoring Harvey Milk as a gay saint.

"It’s about the us’s out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us’s. Without hope, the us’s give up. I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. So you, and you, and you.....you gotta give em Hope."

I think this is a wonderful message. May it resonate with you as Pentecost approaches.