Milk

“This Is Our Lives We’re Fighting For”

      Harvey Milk once said, “I know you can't live on hope alone, but without hope life is not worth living.”   With those words and countless others, he inspired what was once a small group of closeted individuals to become a massive assembly of thousands of people, who were ready to experience equality in their rights as gay men and women.   Even today, Milk’s legacy carries on and continues to be a guiding light for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (GLBT) community.
      ‘“Harvey Milk symbolizes the importance of the gay community in California,” said Aaron McClear, the governor’s spokesman. “And the governor wanted to honor that community. A well-known film brought awareness of him”’(Steinhauer 19).   The preceding was an excerpt from a 2009 New York Times article about how Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger had recently signed a bill setting aside May 22nd as a Harvey Milk remembrance day in the state of California.   The law asked that May 22nd be ‘“a day of “special significance” and encourages schools to observe days of recognition and “conduct suitable commemorative exercises.”’ The bill was a target of strong opposition among some conservative groups, especially those connected to the successful efforts to end same-sex marriage in California.”   It shows great promise that even with so much opposition to the cause that Milk fought for and so many still are fighting for, that a law could be passed against that resistance to show that people in the political spectrum strongly believe in the rights of the GLBT population
      In 2008, a film appropriately titled “Milk” was made about Harvey’s life and his influence on the Bay Area of California, and also on the GLBT community of the United States a whole.   It documented his rise to political stardom when he and his lover, Scott Smith, first opened a camera and film shop on Castro Street in an Irish Catholic neighborhood in San Francisco.   It quickly became a...