The Times of Harvey Milk

The Times of Harvey Milk is a 1984 documentary film by Robert Epstein and Richard Schmiechen. The significance of this documentary is that history is repeating itself. Gay activists tried to force their minority agenda on the majority, and as a result the anger and resentment boiled over into not just a backlash, but in the form of violence.

In a civil society all opposing opinions are respected. The gay activists today attacking Carrie Prejean are experiencing the same backlash for their attempt to silence the majority. Attacks create resentment and hatred.

Proposition 8 passed on November 4, 2008 when all people in California were allowed to vote on the issue of marriage. Proposition 8 was passed by the majority of California, and thus caused the State of California to be amended defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Prior to the passing of Proposition 8 the courts in California repeatedly attacked the majority by allowing gay marriage when it was clear the majority of voters did not want it. Even now the courts are considering whether to again strike down the will of the majority who voted to amend the California Constitution. We don’t want to see any violence over any political issue, even as personal this issue is to all of us.

We would like to see today’s gay activists learn a lesson from this documentary, stop the attacks, and dance with their political opponents to make political progress. Violence is not the way to solve problems. Trying to destroy someone like Carrie Prejean is not the way to solve problems. Mutual respect, and allowing each side to be heard, is the way to have a civil discussion.

Harvey Milk was not a bad person, and neither was Dan White who killed Harvey. The problem that caused emotions to boil over was when Harvey was able to get a law, or city ordinance, in place that gave special rights to gays, without a vote by the people, who would have not agreed to pass the law. White felt angry, as the majority felt, because Milk’s special gay rights ordinance didn’t just cover Milk’s district 5, but all of San Francisco.

It was not right for White to kill anyone. It was also not right for Milk to bypass the majority of people in San Francisco to get a law passed they didn’t agree with. When the majority of people are silenced by the minority, they will take action when they feel the price is too high not to.

If gays want to advance their political agenda they must do so by making heterosexuals their allies. You can’t win by opposing someone. You must get people to take your side, and to do that you must make them feel you are on their side. It takes skill, not attacks and criticism, to make political progress. White felt attacked, so he fought back. White tried to fought back politically which was right, and when that didn’t work he used violence, which was wrong.

Milk knew he could be killed for the approach he used to make political progress, and he was right, because it was the wrong approach.

On October 21, 1985, less than two years after his release from prison, White committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage in San Francisco by running a garden hose from the exhaust pipe to the inside of his car. White had been listening to a recording of Paddy Reilly’s rendition of “The Town I Loved So Well” on the car’s cassette player. White’s body was discovered by his brother, Thomas, shortly before 2 p.m. the same day.

This story wasn’t so much for me about gay versus straight, it was about how opposing someone, rather than gaining your opposition’s support, can cause a trajedy.