On Wednesday, independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr. posted an homage to Harvey Milk, an infamous Democrat politician accused of grooming minors, on the day established in 2009 to celebrate his life. Kennedy posted on X, “I want to take a moment to celebrate Harvey Milk Day and honor a man whose bravery transformed our society. Harvey Milk was a trailblazer for LGBTQ+ rights and the first openly gay individual elected to public office in California.”
“Harvey died fighting for what he believed in and left behind a world in which people could live more freely and more authentically,” he wrote. “Today, as we seek to heal America from division and demonization, let’s remember the example Harvey set for standing together. Harvey showed us that even the smallest acts of kindness can bring light to the darkest moments and bring to life a better world. In this time of turmoil and war, let’s honor Harvey Milk by spreading his message of peace and social justice for all. Together we can create a future with less violence, more humanity, more prosperity and more joy. Harvey Milk once said, “Hope will never be silent” and neither will we, in honor of Harvey Milk.”
Milk, a civil rights icon, was portrayed by Sean Penn in an Academy Award-winning biopic, has been pictured on a postage stamp, had a naval vessel named after him, and even an airport terminal, despite the scandals that plagued him.
Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel previously profiled Milk, based on what the civil rights icon’s own biographers admitted regarding his behavior and accounts from his victims. He said that one of Milk’s victims was a 16-year-old runaway from Maryland named Jack Galen McKinley and cited Randy Shilts, a San Francisco Chronicle reporter, a friend of Milk’s and his biographer who wrote in the book “The Mayor of Castro Street,” about Milk’s “relationship’ with the McKinley boy: ‘… Sixteen-year-old McKinley was looking for some kind of father figure. … At 33, Milk was launching a new life, though he could hardly have imagined the unlikely direction toward which his new lover would pull him.”
Child advocate and founder of SaveCalifornia.com Randy Thomasson noted regarding the Shilts biography, “Explaining Milk’s many flings and affairs with teenagers and young men, Randy Shilts writes how Milk told one ‘lover’ why it was OK for him to also have multiple relationships simultaneously: ‘As homosexuals, we can’t depend on the heterosexual model. … We grow up with the heterosexual model, but we don’t have to follow it. We should be developing our own lifestyle. There’s no reason why you can’t love more than one person at a time.’”