Harvey Milk's contribution to the gay rights movement

[Maria]

Hello, my name is Maria. I'm from Saint-Petersburg, Russia. I'm the
member of Russian LGBT-community and making a research about Harvey Milk.

Dear friends, please help me to imagine the full picture of Harvey Milk's contribution to the gay rights movement and the main principles of his activities. His experience is very important and inspiring to LGBT community and of course to any democratic movement. We (me and my colleagues) recently watched the movie “Milk” and enjoyed it very much. And we sure that his legacy and ideas can be useful to achievement of our aims.
So I'd like to know your opinion about these questions and statements:
1. What was the main reason of his victory?
The endorsement of his district?
His talent as a businessman and organizer?
The happy circumstances (the heroic action of Bill Sipple) that helped Milk and his campaign to get in the national newspapers?
His talent of speaker due to which most gays and straight people perceived his ideas and came forward for their civil rights?
Or spirit of that epoch of seventieth, spirit of equality and freedom?
Or maybe all of that reasons?

2. Some people (Cleve Jones) attributes more to his assassination than his life: "His murder and the response to it made permanent and unquestionable the full participation of gay and lesbian people in the political process." Ant it is truth (the historical marches to Washington, the Marriage equality movement …) But after the tragedy as Frances FitzGerald said, that the Castro could find no one to take his place in its affections. And Randy Shilts concludes his biography writing that Milk's success, murder, and the inevitable injustice of White's verdict represented the experience of all gays. Milk's life was "a metaphor for the homosexual experience in America". So my thought is: I really think that we no longer need victims in an order to get equal rights. We (in Russia) need to perceive his ideas and trust that it is possible to repeat his achievements for us. We need to be more active and openly to ruin the myths. I think that it’s a main principle of modern LGBT rightly movement.

Thank you very much for your opinions.

P.S. Could you tell me, please: has the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club been a political organization?
P.S. Dear Rick336, thank you very much for your posts about Harvey Milk. The way and things you writing about are very important and inspiring to us. God bless you!

Maria.

[antiochian]

Welcome, Maria! I'm not informed enough to answer your questions above, will let someone who knows more about Harvey answer. I feel for you in Russia. From what I've read the LGBT community there is treated poorly by both government and Church. I wish you the best of luck and blessings.

[Maria]

Thank you very much for your feels and blessings, dear friend. I really appreciate that.
You know, Russia is not Iran, and the Church positions in people's minds are not so strong. And I really believe that the Church can be our friend. One of our main problem is the ignorance by the government. They don't want to listen to us, they don't give the permissions to the marches ("security problems"), don't register LGBT organizations, encourage extremists, don't hurry with the rehabilitation of people, convict to 1993 years for homosexuality. In short, we have much work. And success of Harvey Milk inspires. I will make attempt to connect with the Harvey Milk Memorial Gay Democratic Club.
Thank's again.
Maria.
P.S. Excuse my English:0)

[Stigandi]

your english seams to be better than mine!

[Maria]

:0))
You are very kind.
And it is great that lot of LGBT literature is in English, so "we can do it":))
See you!

[nmwolfboy]

i think Harvey was successful because he actually cared about people and was really politically astute. He understood his constituency and knew how to build coalitions and find common causes that transcended any one particular demographic.

What doesn't come across in the film "Milk" is the cadre of VERY supportive senior citizens who participated in his campaigns. Their willingness to lend a hand during his campaigns is legendary. He earned their support by being an unfailing advocate for their concerns.

[Maria]

I agree. He was democrat from his birth. And a man, who loved people.
As someone said: "Democracy - it is not power of majority, but defence of minority". Probably I already know an answer for this question, but will ask all the same: what did move him forward? What did move him to pull out a candidature on elections over and over and to extend an election programme.
Sense of solidarity with gay community?
Desire to help people?
The belief that gays must live by the opened valuable life?
Democratic ideas about equality deeply in his heart?
Support of like-minded persons?
Why he, even understanding that he can be killed, walked ahead?

Thank you very much for your opinion, dear friend!

P.S. Here is the interview with Harvey's old friends: http://www.towardequality.org/Harvey%20Milk.htm
It is really fantastic!

[Gennee]

Harvey Milk took on issues that are often overlooked. The elderly and disabled were two of them. A lot of politicians today really don't all that much about the people or the goings-on in their community.

Gennee

[Maria]

Thank you very much. I agree with you! And that's amazing. He perfectly understood that LGBT movement is a part of the entire equality movement. It is simple, and very hard to attain.
But we cannot live on hope alone!
Thank you, Gennee.
See you:))

[Pablo Rafael]

Welcome to the forums, I hope you will join in on the conversations.

I think that Harvey Milk could only have been elected in San Francisco. At that period in time only San Francisco was open enough and had a large enough gay population to elect him. That being said, I don't think he was elected because he was gay; I think conversely that anywhere else he could not have been elected because he was gay.

He had a keen political sense and cared for all causes that affected the downtodden in his district. He was well liked because of his personal charisma and dedication to helping all people.

I don't think he was a gay politician, but a politician that happened to be gay.

I think he would still have been a groundbreaking figure even if he had not been assasinated. He was the first openly gay elected official in the States. But I think his assasination brought his name into widespread recognition all over the country. Another issue that was brought to light was the discrimination that gay people faced in the judicial system. The fact that his killer got off with a fairly minor sentence shone the spotlight on the anti-gay prejudice of the day.

Have you seen the older documentary The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (I think that is the title; it might not be exact). It is an excellent documentary. I have not yet seen Milk.

I think that the United States also needs to be educated on gay rights issues. We suffer greatly from ignorance of the government (on many issues not just LGBT rights) and ignorance of the people in general. There is still a lot of work to be done in this country. In the US I think the churches are the main obstacle to a more open and accepting society.

BTW: My ancestry is Russian on my mother's father's side of the family. They were not close to St. Petersburg, however. They lived somewhere between Volgograd and Saratov.

Tu Amigo, Pablo

[Gennee]

Welcome to the forums, I hope you will join in on the conversations.

I think that Harvey Milk could only have been elected in San Francisco. At that period in time only San Francisco was open enough and had a large enough gay population to elect him. That being said, I don't think he was elected because he was gay; I think conversely that anywhere else he could not have been elected because he was gay.

He had a keen political sense and cared for all causes that affected the downtodden in his district. He was well liked because of his personal charisma and dedication to helping all people.

I don't think he was a gay politician, but a politician that happened to be gay.

I think he would still have been a groundbreaking figure even if he had not been assasinated. He was the first openly gay elected official in the States. But I think his assasination brought his name into widespread recognition all over the country. Another issue that was brought to light was the discrimination that gay people faced in the judicial system. The fact that his killer got off with a fairly minor sentence shone the spotlight on the anti-gay prejudice of the day.

Have you seen the older documentary The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (I think that is the title; it might not be exact). It is an excellent documentary. I have not yet seen Milk.

I think that the United States also needs to be educated on gay rights issues. We suffer greatly from ignorance of the government (on many issues not just LGBT rights) and ignorance of the people in general. There is still a lot of work to be done in this country. In the US I think the churches are the main obstacle to a more open and accepting society.

BTW: My ancestry is Russian on my mother's father's side of the family. They were not close to St. Petersburg, however. They lived somewhere between Volgograd and Saratov.

Tu Amigo, Pablo

You're so right about that, Pablo. I had the chance to educate someone last night about transgender issues. I do keep up with gay issues because I believe we need to support each other.

Gennee

[Maria]

Thank you very much. I’ll try to be an internet activist))
Dear Pablo, you’ve said very important things to me.
“I don't think he was a gay politician, but a politician that happened to be gay” – such a wonderful expression!
I think, in the modern world the LGBT rights movement is the part of movement for the rights protection of a wide range of different social groups.
The time has passed and his figure became a symbolic. And it is very important to understand the real social, political and may be economic causes, which provided his success. It is important may be to the better use of that historical (I mean history of LGBT movement) example. And you helped me in this case very much.
“Another issue that was brought to light was the discrimination that gay people faced in the judicial system” – I’m totally agree with you. I don’t know much about your legislation and the influence of Harvey’s ideas to it and the social resonance, which occurred after his death. But I think that modern Marriage Equality movement (now they prepare protest actions if the decision of Supreme Court about Proposition 8 (California) would be negative) can be a result of that.
I Have recently (yesterday) seen the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, and it is really great movie. And now I’ve seen that the Milk’s screenplay is based on the documentary. And you should see Milk! You’ll enjoy it very much!
Some people on forums think that we can’t do anything with the stagnation only if there will be victims (political, judicial, victims of violence) among us. And that's horrible. But they will be anyway even if we will be quiet.
I’m sorry for telling you all this, but I think that we (Russian LGBT) are at American sixtieth level of development.
We couldn’t register our LGBT organization during a long time, thus LGBT did not acknowledged by social group. Funny, isn’t it?

Anyway the truth is in our side and we should win.

It is great that you have relatives from Russia.
You became even closer for me:))
See you on forum.
Hug.
Maria.

[Maria]

"Me (LGB) and Jenny (T) goes together like peas and carrots". ))
Hugs,
Maria.

[Jennifer5]

First of all... Welcome! Glad to have you here! :wave:

I was going to try to respond to all of your questions but after reading what Pablo posted I felt I had nothing left to say.

I love quotes though:
"You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people if you don't serve the people."

I think Harvey Milk must have believed in those words. :love: