by Milk, Harvey
But the fact is that many people will get tired of the gay rights talks. Each day more and more people will make up their minds about the issue. WE and I stress the WE, must talk about some of the issues now while people are still listening and before they get fixed on a position that might be against us.
Many campaigns have already started. We have no control over the campaign against us—the Briggs side. Based on what took place from Dade County to Eugene, we know what to expect, especially at the end of the campaign. We must undermine their emotional campaign, geared to fears based on myths, now—before they start them up. And, they will.
The bigots waged campaigns of lies and hysteria in every city and there is no reason to believe that they won’t here in California. To hope for something else is to be like Jews in Nazi Germany as they were being loaded into the box cars and hoping that they will be treated nicely and not put into the ovens.
I believe that we can win in November . . . but only if we mount a full-fledged campaign. One that covers all bases, both positive and defensive. Yes, defensive, too. For not to answer the false charges is, to some, an admission that the charges are not false. Otherwise, we would repudiate them.
There is no time like the present to start to repudiate them. For the sooner we start, the sooner we can lay them to rest. So, we need to have every gay person talk to as many non-gay people as possible about the issues—both real and false. It will be a monumental effort and, because many gays will remain in their closet, it makes it that much more important for those of us who are out.
Thus, I feel that now—before they start in—we must talk about the false issues. They will be raised by Briggs and, if they wait to near the end, there will not be enough to time to speak out and explode the myths.
We must talk about child molestation.
We must talk about role models.
We must talk about the Bible.
We must talk about “Chosen” lifestyles.
I would like to explode one of those myths right now. To me, the most pernicious is that gay people have deliberately “chosen” their homosexuality. I’ve known many more gay people than Anita Bryant and John Briggs have, and I have to tell you that they, and the churches that support them, deliberately lie.
Imagine a young girl or boy brought up by heterosexual parents in a fiercely heterosexual society, a society in which all “the role models” are strongly heterosexual, a society which considers a homosexual the lowest form of life, suitable fodder for queer-baiting, rape, murder. Now try to imagine this impressionable adolescent, who wants nothing more than to be a part of her or his own peer group, somehow deciding that homosexuality is the best of all possible worlds. As Anita Bryant would have us believe, on their 18th birthday, they suddenly say, “Gee, ma! I wanna be gay!” It’s all a matter of “choice.”
There is a perversity in that accusation of “choice” that chills my blood. It reeks of madness.
Where choice does play a part, of course, is in coming out. The choice is whether you should lead a secret life, subject to great personal agony, the threat of blackmail and the corrosion of self-respect or whether you choose pride. Pride in what you are, in the life you lead, in the emotions you feel.
A famous American coined the phrase that covers it all, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Patrick Henry was talking about political liberty. But there is a more personal type, a more important type. If you are not personally free to be yourself in that most important of all human activities—the expression of love—than life itself loses its meaning.
To come out for a gay person requires a degree of courage that is rarely asked of a straight person. It involves the possible loss of one’s job, the possible breaking of ties to one’s families, the possible loss of one’s friends and the realization that in the minds of most people you meet, you will not be seen as a stereotype.
And, once you’ve come out, there is no going back. Your gayness is now public, as much a part of you as the color of skin is to a black person. That’s the only “choice” we have.
Our non-gay neighbors must be told that and they must understand that. The myths must be exploded. You as an individual can do that. And you must start to do it now. The last week of October will be too late.
37
“Gay Freedom Day Speech”
Reprinted speech, Bay Area Reporter, June 25, 1978
One of the highlights of Castro life was the annual Gay Freedom Day celebration that included parades, performances, and community activities. Milk used the 1978 event as an opportunity to speak out on the Briggs Initiative.
As the summer of 1978 commenced, it was clear that the national wave of homophobia Briggs was both generating and floating atop was cresting. This was problematic as the November referendum deadline approached. As with Bryant’s campaign, Proposition 6 inflamed the electorate because it concerned children, the specters of molestation and murder of the innocents, and the classroom as a recruitment space of so-called GLBTQ propaganda. These concerns seemed to resonate briefly with dominant California communities. In fact, the first poll in September 1978 indicated that 61 percent of the voters favored Proposition 6. The witch hunts, which would continue as teachers and public employees were “exposed,” were too much to bear for GLBTQ activists. Even so, GLBTQ journalists and leaders like Milk asked for calm and tried to keep solidarity at the fore as the GLBTQ community faced a certain defeat in November.
Milk’s response, as we might expect, was to fight. By his battle plan, one must ceaselessly talk, speaking out to explode the homophobic myths and hysteria that the Religious Right and opportunists such as John Briggs exploited to their ideological and political advantage. And talk he did, refuting the lies and distortions that asserted that homosexuality is a choice, that GLBTQ individuals are the primary perpetrators of child molestation and abuse, that GLBTQ people recruit by becoming “role models” for the “lifestyle,” and simultaneously promoting the idea that homosexuality is natural, given, omnipresent, good, and undeserving of discrimination, harassment, and violence.
In mobilizing the GLBTQ community to rise up against Briggs, Milk employed a patriotic collective memory, quoting Patrick Henry, the Declaration of Independence, the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal welcome, and “The Star Spangled Banner.” In the address that follows, one gets a sense for the flavor of Milk’s use of such memory. The analogies employed speak to Milk’s insistence on linking gay rights with American liberation. Harkening back to a distinctly American past, in this vein, allowed Milk to connect GLBTQ communities to other oppressed groups who had both faced and fought the “long train of abuses” first articulated by the nation’s forebears—from African Americans and Native Americans to women, laborers, and religious minorities.
Moreover, Milk began characterizing Briggs and his supporters as fascists and Nazis. This would become a common trope employed to expose the viciousness of Proposition 6. Raised in a Jewish home, it might not be a surprise that Milk favored the Holocaust trope, likening Briggs to Hitler and GLBTQ folks to Jews oppressed by the genocidal Nazi regime. This invective pivoted the debate in terms of good and evil. And such a Judeo-Christian theme of innocents and sinners was a necessary tactic, as Milk and his allies faced fighting what he continually called the Religious Right. Dismantling the proverbial master’s house with the master’s tools would eventually prove effective for Milk. And of course, the analogizing of anyone or anything considered “evil” with the ultimate enemy in Western history underscored Milk’s savvy as a rhetor. Simultaneously, Milk made it clear that he was not afraid of these homophobic “Nazis.” In a later Bay Area Reporter article, Milk wrote, “Do you think gay people are going with their heads bowed to the gas chambers? I mean, I’ll go kicking and screaming before I go with my head bowed. Three hundred thousand gays went into the gas chambers in Germany [sic] and then six million Jews. I don’t think the Jews are going to go quietly next time, so why should gay people?” The fight against Briggs oftentim
es boiled down to self-empowerment for Milk.
One other noteworthy element of Milk’s 1978 Gay Freedom Day Speech is what became his signature opening line during the months of the Briggs debate: “I’m Harvey Milk and I’m here to recruit you.” This announcement was a play on Briggs’ insistence that GLBTQ teachers “recruited” their students into an elusive and mysterious “gayness.” Milk’s humor often set his discourse apart from other activists as lively, comfortable, and witty.
Ultimately, 1978’s version of San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day parade became incredibly political. As the San Diego Union noted in the parade’s wake, “The focus of the event [this year] was a voter initiative on the November ballot that has been widely labeled anti-gay.” The Las Vegas Review Journal described the event for its readers in this way: “Singing slightly altered songs like, ‘When the Dykes Go Marching In,’ an estimated 240,000 gays and their supporters marched through downtown streets Sunday. . . . A group of gay teachers marched along chanting, ‘Two, four, six, eight—our Miss Brooks wasn’t straight.’” All in all, the typical street theater bacchanalia became a fun and festive, yet politically centered, event to both raise awareness about the Briggs Initiative and to raise money to defeat it.
. . .
My name is Harvey Milk—and I want to recruit you for the fight to preserve your democracy from the John Briggs’ and the Anita Bryants who are trying to constitutionalize bigotry. We are not going to allow that to happen. We are not going to sit back in silence as 300,000 of our Gay sisters and brothers did in Nazi Germany. We are not going to allow our rights to be taken away and then march with bowed heads to the gas chambers. On this anniversary of Stonewall, I ask my Gay sisters and brothers to make their commitment to fight. For themselves, for their freedom, for their country.
Here in San Francisco we recently held an election for a judgeship. An anti-Gay smear campaign was waged against a presiding judge because she was supported by Lesbians and Gay men. Here, in so-called liberal San Francisco, an anti-Gay smear campaign was waged by so-called liberals. And here in so-called liberal San Francisco, we have a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, Kevin Starr, who has printed a number of columns containing distortions and lies about Gays. He’s getting away with it.
These anti-Gay smear campaigns, these anti-Gay columns, are laying the groundwork for the Briggs Initiative. We had better be prepared for it.
In the Examiner, Kevin Starr defames and libels Gays. In the Chronicle, Charles McCabe warns us to be quiet, that talking about Gay rights is counter-productive. To Mr. McCabe, I say that the day he stops talking about freedom of the press is the day he no longer has it. The Blacks did not win their rights by sitting quietly in the back of the bus! They got off! We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets. . . We are coming out! We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions! We are coming out to tell the truth about Gays! For I am tired of the conspiracy of silence.
I’m tired of listening to the Anita Bryants twist the language and the meaning of the Bible to fit their own distorted outlook. But I’m even more tired of the silence from the religious leaders of this nation who know that she is playing fast and loose with the true meaning of the Bible. I’m tired of their silence more than of her biblical gymnastics!
And I’m tired of John Briggs talking about false role models. He’s lying through his teeth and he knows it. But I’m even more tired of the silence from educators and psychologists who know that Briggs is lying and yet say nothing. I’m tired of their silence more than of Briggs’ lies.
Gay people are painted as child molesters. I want to talk about that. I want to talk about the myth of child molestations by Gays. I want to talk about the fact that in this state some 95% of child molestations are heterosexual and usually committed by a parent. That all child abandonments are heterosexual. That all abuse of children is by their heterosexual parents. That some 98% of the six million rapes committed annually in this country are heterosexual. That one out of every three women who will be murdered in this state this year will be murdered by their husbands. That some 30% of all heterosexual marriages contain domestic violence.
And finally, I want to tell the John Briggs’ and the Anita Bryants that they talk about the myths of Gays, but today I’m talking about the facts of heterosexual violence and what the hell are you going to do about that?
Clean up your own house before you start telling lies about Gays. Don’t distort the Bible to hide your own sins; don’t change facts to lies; don’t look for cheap political advantage in playing upon people’s fears. Judging by the polls, even the youth of this state can tell you’re lying Anita Bryant, John Briggs—your deliberate lies and distortions, your unwillingness to face the truth, chills my blood—it reeks of madness!
And like the rest of you, I’m tired of our so-called “friends” who tell us that we must set standards. What standards? The standards of the rapists? The wife beaters? The child abusers? The people who ordered the bomb to be built? The people who ordered it to be dropped? The people who pulled the trigger? The people who gave us Vietnam? The people who built the concentration camps—right here in California—and then herded all the Japanese Americans into them during World War II . . . The Jew baiters? The nigger knockers? The corporate thieves? The Nixons? The Hitlers?
What standards do you want us to set? Clean up your own act. Clean up your violence before you criticize Lesbians and Gay men because of their sexuality. . . . It is madness to glorify killing and violence on one hand and to be ashamed of the sexual act that conceived you on the other hand. There is a difference between morality and murder. The fact is that more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, my friends, is the true perversion!
Gay brothers and sisters, what are you going to do about it? You must come out. Come out to your parents, your relatives. I know that it is hard and that it will hurt them, but think of how they will hurt you in the voting booth! Come out to your friends, if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbors, to your co-workers, to the people who work where you eat and shop. Come out only to the people you know and who know you. Not to anyone else. But once and for all, break down the myths; destroy the lies and distortions for your own sake, for their sake, for the sake of the youngsters who are being terrified by the votes coming from Dade County to Eugene. If Briggs wins he will not stop. They never do. Like all mad people, they are forced to go on, to prove they were right. There will be no safe closet for any Gay person. So break out of yours today; tear the damn thing down once and for all!
And finally, most of all, I’m tired of the silence from the White House. Jimmy Carter, you talk about human rights a lot; in fact, you want to be the world’s leader for human rights. Well, damn it, lead! There are some 15-20 million Lesbians and Gay men in this nation listening very carefully. Jimmy Carter, when are you going to talk about THEIR rights? You talk a lot about the Bible, but when are you going to talk about the most important part: “Love Thy Neighbor"? After all, she may be Gay.
Jimmy Carter, you have the choice. How many more years? How much more violence? How much more damage? How many more lives? History says that, like all groups seeking their rights, sooner or later we will win. The question is: When?
Jimmy Carter, you have to make the choice. Either years of violence, or you can help turn the pages of history that much faster. And now, before it becomes too late, come to California and speak out against Briggs.
If you don’t—then we will come to you! If you do not speak out, if you remain silent, if you do not lift your voice against Briggs, then I call upon Lesbians and Gay men from all over the nation, your nation, to gather in Washington one year from now on that national day of freedom, the Fourth of July. To gather on the same spot where over a decade ago Dr. Martin Luther King spoke to a nation of his dreams . . . dreams that are fast fading, dreams that to many millions in this country have become nightmares. I call upon al
l minorities and especially the millions of Lesbians and Gay men to wake up from their dreams . . . to gather in Washington and tell Jimmy carter and their nation: “Wake up . . . Wake up, America. No more racism; no more sexism; no more ageism; no more hatred. No more!”
Jimmy Carter, listen to us today. Or you will have to listen to all of us from all over the nation as we gather in Washington next year. For we WILL gather there and we will tell you about America and what it really stands for.
. . . And to the bigots . . . To the John Briggs’ . . . To the Anita Bryants . . . To the Kevin Starrs and all their ilk: Let me remind you what America is. Listen carefully. On the Statue of Liberty it says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free. . . .” In the Declaration of Independence it is written, “All men are created equal and they are endowed with certain inalienable rights. . . .” And in our national anthem it says: “Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the free. . .”
For Mr. Briggs and Mrs. Green and Mr. Starr and all the bigots out there: That’s what America is. No matter how hard you try, you cannot erase those words from the Declaration of Independence. No matter how hard you try, you cannot chip those words off the base of the Statue of Liberty. And no matter how hard you try, you cannot sing the STAR SPANGLED BANNER without those words. THAT’s what America is, LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!
38
“To Beat Briggs”
Column, Bay Area Reporter, August 3, 1978
As the “Summer of Briggs” continued, Milk’s frustration with middle-of-the-road GLBTQ community members reluctant to join the fight increased. Ostensibly, complacency and apathy incensed his spirit of vigilant reform. His August 3, 1978, forum editorial in the Bay Area Reporter presented his frustrations. In effect, he directly charged his readers with getting involved—monetarily as well as in spirit. Milk articulated this claim laden with guilt alongside a sense of fear. The latter pathos appeal spoke to the importance of self-safety (physical and public). Milk wrote, “Unless the Gay community, in total, starts to act now, it will be too late.” Here, Milk reminded GLBTQ readers that Briggs’s focus on exposing and occluding teachers was just the beginning of what such a homophobic law could propagate in terms of other, farther stretching anti-GLBTQ legislation. Just as Bryant’s campaign had given way to Briggs’s proposal, so to was the worry that the successful passage of Proposition 6 would give rise to other homophobic demagogues determined to restrict further the public liberties and personal freedoms of GLBTQ communities. Milk was recorded in a later retrospective as writing, “If Briggs wins, he will not stop. They never do. Like all mad people, they are forced to go on, to prove they are right; there will be no safe closet for any gay person. So break out of yours today; tear the damn thing down once and for all!” Again, this sentiment evinced the palpable fear that Milk held close; the essay below seethes with his anger for apathetic community members and teems with his insistence that they support the anti-Briggs campaign.
