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Harvey Milk Day
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CopyIn spite of strident opposition from people who wish the gay community would just shut up and go away, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill on Sunday proclaiming May 22 every year as Harvey Milk Day. May 22 is the birthday of the gay rights leader and assassinated San Francisco supervisor.
This is not a state holiday; it is an official commemoration of the status of Harvey Milk in the history of civil rights, and of the state of California. The law calls for the day to be observed in the schools with appropriate exercises recalling Milk's life and contributions to the state. Understanding, tolerance and fairness is not indoctrination.
Harvey Milk was one of the first openly gay men to be elected to public office, and he was a courageous leader in the ongoing struggle to attain basic legal rights for gay, lesbian, bi- and transgender people who had always been a part of every community, though usually invisible and powerless.
On the same day, the governor signed another, more substantive, bill: one that recognizes in California the out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples. California, still overcoming the embarrassment of passing anti-gay Proposition 8, will honor the commitments of those couples whose home states let them choose their own partners.
--J. Stephen McLaughlin
Copyright 2009 Independent Coast Observer, Gualala, California. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.
© 2010 Independent Coast Observer Gualala, California. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.
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