Petrelis Files

NYT: No Charismatic Harvey Milk
Leading Prop 8 Fight

Jesse McKinley, the bureau chief for the New York Times' San Francisco office, penned a piece for today's Week in Review section about the upcoming film "Milk" and some of the differences in how gays fought the Briggs Initiative, Prop 6, in the 1970s, and today's anti-gay-marriage proposition. McKinley wrote:

Perhaps the biggest difference today is the lack of charismatic front men like Mr. Milk, who was assassinated by a fellow supervisor, Dan White, shortly after the defeat of Proposition 6. Mr. Milk, one of the country’s first openly gay elected officials, became the face of the anti-Proposition 6 campaign by challenging its major sponsor, a Republican state senator from Southern California, to a series of debates.

Such figures are harder to find in this generation of gay leaders, said Scott Schmidt, who is 33, gay, opposed to Proposition 8 — and a Republican.

“There are no Harvey Milks,” he said, “in this campaign.”

Hold on just a minute, please. It's too sweeping a generalization to say CA gays lack charismatic leaders, and leaders who could easily and expertly debate the merits of gay marriage equality and the value of defeating Prop 8.

Off the top of my head, I can think of a number of gay politicians with charisma and easy intelligence who would get my vote to debate Prop 8 opponents and command an army of lovers to beat back the ballot measure.

From the political world there's Mark Leno, Sheila Kuehl, John Duran and Bevan Dufty. Look at the nonprofit world and Kate Kendall, Lori Jean and Phill Wilson all come to mind, as do Ellen Degeneres and TR Knight, who hail from Hollywood. And surely there are lots of other worthy gay folks who can and do carry on the work of Harvey Milk, every day, from other sectors of the community.

If there had been large, televised debates between those No on Prop 8 advocates and the Yes leadership, comparable in importance to the debates Milk and John Briggs stages in their day, any of the folks on the list above would have increased their charisma in view of the voting public.

Count me as one who won't accept McKinley's contention, backed up one gay GOP voter, that the fabulous and extraordinary CA suffers from bland and boring political leaders. Not only that, but we're also going to see Prop 8 fail to pass on Tuesday.