A REPORTED DECISION TO STRIP Harvey Milk’s honorific from a U.S. Navy vessel named for the San Francisco LGBTQ rights icon drew condemnation from several Bay Area politicians.
The USNS Harvey Milk is a fleet replenishment oiler in the Navy’s John Lewis class, named for the late congressman and civil rights leader.
Though no official word has come from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or the U.S. Department of Defense, multiple news outlets reported the plan to rename the USNS Harvey Milk as part of what Hegseth has described as the U.S. military’s return to a “warrior” mentality that doesn’t focus on the “immutable characteristics” of its ranks such as race, gender, or sexual orientation.
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi called the decision to rename the ship “shameful.”
The removal of Harvey Milk’s name from a naval vessel — during Pride Month, no less — is absolutely shameful.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco
“The reported decision by the Trump Administration to change the names of the USNS Harvey Milk and other ships in the John Lewis class is a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American dream,” Pelosi said in a statement released by her office.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, also rebuked the move, calling it an “unprecedented attack on decades of work by LGBTQ veterans.”
“The removal of Harvey Milk’s name from a naval vessel — during Pride Month, no less — is absolutely shameful,” Wiener said in a statement released by his office. “Harvey Milk was my hero. He was a veteran who served our country. He died for our community.”
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla said the decision will deepen the divides in the country even further.
“Harvey Milk’s legacy will not be erased by Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth’s petty culture wars and attempts to undermine the tremendous contributions and service of the LGBTQ community to our country,” he said. “The USNS Harvey Milk pays tribute to a Navy veteran, a trailblazing gay rights activist, and a dedicated California public servant who paid the ultimate price for equality in San Francisco and across the nation.”
Milk was California’s first openly gay man to serve in elected office when he became a San Francisco supervisor in 1977. He was assassinated in 1978 by fellow Supervisor Dan White, who had resigned just days before and fatally shot both Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone.
The USNS Harvey Milk was launched in 2021 out of a San Diego port.
Hegseth’s Department of Defense in January released a statement entitled, “Identity Months Dead at DoD,” referring to Black History Month and Pride Month, among others.
“Our unity and purpose are instrumental to meeting the Department’s warfighting mission,” reads the statement. “Efforts to divide the force — to put one group ahead of another — erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution.”
Hegseth has drawn fire for dismissing multiple military leaders who were Black or female, and the Pentagon began removing and barring transgender servicemembers in May. Even mentions of the World War II aircraft named for the mother of the plane’s pilot, the Enola Gay, were flagged for review in a DOD diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, purge earlier this year.
Milk was a Navy veteran who served during the Korean War.
At the time of the USNS Harvey Milk’s christening, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro attended the event and said he was honored to be there.
“The secretary of the Navy needed to be here today not just to amend the wrongs of the past, but to give inspiration to all of our LGBTQ community leaders who served in the Navy in uniform today — and in the civilian workforce as well too — and to tell them that we’re committed to them in the future,” Del Toro said at the 2021 event.
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