Archive of Hope

by Milk, Harvey

  12

  “Where There Is No Victim, There Is No Crime”

  Press release, April 1, 1974

  One of the noteworthy aspects of Harvey Milk’s political career was the consistency with which he held, developed, and stumped on behalf of issues he believed mattered and the larger vision that encompassed them. Milk’s outrage about the corrupted priorities of elected officials was no mere provocation for a solitary campaign season. Milk repeats here in part verbatim and extends his arguments about the true victims of miscreant morality merged with politics, and those officials divorced from the lived experience of the city who regulate it with their wasteful and costly policing and prosecution. Milk had a rhetorical talent for damning juxtaposition, creating perspective by incongruity through figures such as cowardly officer O’shaughnessy and those “deviant” prostitutes, pot smokers, and queers he harassed, all the while on vacant police beats throughout the city it was open season for burglars, rapists, and murderers. Such framings challenged a cheap and vicious moral economy heavily bankrolled by tax dollars and governed by compromised bureaucrats, and they reconfigured the conditions and enactments of justice.

  Milk would never abandon his fight against the criminalization of homosexuality (or other victimless “offenses”). Surely his advocacy, richly exhibited in this press release, contributed to the momentum that resulted in the 1975 passage of Assemblyman Willie Brown’s hard-won California AB489, Consenting Adult Sex Law, which repealed the state sodomy law. He also influenced State Senator George Moscone, who ensured AB489’s success, and who would institutionalize the curtailment of prosecutions for victimless crimes when he became mayor in 1976.

  . . .

  We have heard a lot this afternoon about the high costs to all taxpayers, especially the homeowner and renter, of police enforcement of victimless crime laws. There is another high cost that cannot be “statistically” computed. Not too long ago, several members of our famed vice squad rented rooms in the Hilton and called up prostitutes from East Bay. They made a great deal of busting these women. We can compute the cost in policemen hours, hotel rooms, and so forth that went into this great act of police heroism. What we cannot add up in dollars and cents is the cost to a young woman who, at the very same time, was raped on Castro and 20th street because there was no police on patrol. While viceman O’shaughnessy was “protecting” our city from crime by drinking in the Hilton and calling up East Bay prostitutes, one of the citizens that he was supposed to be protecting was raped in our city streets.

  How many homes are burglarized while our vice squad hunts prostitutes in hotel rooms? How many cars are stolen while our vice squad spends hours lurking in men’s toilets? How many elderly are mugged while our brave police are beating up homosexuals? What is the cost in stolen property? Stolen cars? What is the cost in increased insurance rates? What is the cost in increased burglary alarm equipment? What is the cost in added private security policemen? And, all because we allow our police force to spend hours after hours pursuing crimes where there is no victim. How many men do we have tracking down homicides? All of 17! How many do we have in the Hilton and men’s toilets tracking down homosexuals! Our great defenders of peace and law and order. Ask the wife of a murder victim if this is a proper use of our police!

  What is the cost in the new fears of mugged victims? What is the cost to the women who have been raped? All because [people] like O’shaughnessy feel “safer” busting gays than going after real criminals who might, in turn, show him that he is nothing but a coward.

  And why does all this happen?

  One: the police apparently don’t want to, or can’t catch real criminals for they are basically afraid to walk the beats at night in crime areas. Afraid that they may have to come face to face with a criminal in carrying out their duty to protect the city and its people. Thus, in order to get their statistics of arrests high enough and to “prove” to themselves how brave they are, they resort to the manly and dangerous acts of busting prostitutes and entrapment of gays.

  The second reason is because of our leaders. Our political, ministerial, educational, and parental leaders all have failed in their efforts to teach morality and make themselves moral examples. Because some “influential” people have families that are unstable, because their own church has failed its mission to install decency, because their chosen politicians have failed to prove themselves worthy of emulation, these modern day moralists are attempting to make the police guardians and ministers of morality while serious crimes against victims continue unabated. Our modern moralists are like their cousins of the ‘20s, revitalizing crime: organized crime! For out of the moralists who forced prohibition on us was created the greatest crime waves and crime syndicate this nation has ever known. In the name of morality the prohibitionist created Murder Inc. Today we have the same thing happening. And this false morality violates the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution—the separation of church and state!

  If these moralists do not like the Constitution, let them amend it in a legal manner. Let them scrap the Bill of Rights and, in turn, let them go back to God with their morality and become ministers—true ministers. Instead of spending time trying to get the death penalty passed, let them remember the Ten Commandments. Let them teach the Commandment: Thou shalt not kill. Where is the commandment that says: Thou shalt not smoke marijuana? Where is the commandment that says: Thou shalt not read dirty books? Where is the commandment that says: Thou shalt not be naked? Why are these moralists so zealous in the application of man-made Commandments and so strangely apathetic when it comes to the Commandments of God?

  Let my tax money go for my protection and not my prosecution. Protect my home, my streets, protect my property, protect my life. Let my minister and not some policeman worry about my morality. Let our mayor worry about gun control and not about marijuana control. Let our mayor worry about dental care for the elderly and not about what books others may want to read. Let our mayor worry about becoming a human being and not about how to prevent others from enjoying their lives. Where there is no victim there is no crime! The gays who are entrapped have to pay the costs of Alioto’s false morality. Where there is no victim there is no crime! Our leaders’ sense of priorities is out of order. Alioto, Scott, O’shaughnessy and all the others should become ministers if they are so worried about morality. Let us have a real mayor, real police who want to stop crime against victims. Where there is no victim there is no crime!

  13

  “Political Power”

  Article draft, Sentinel, May 23, 1974

  Although Milk himself was not running for office in 1974, that season’s races provided an opportunity to expand upon his political vision for the GLBTQ community. As he had argued during his supervisorial campaign the previous year, if only GLBTQ people would overcome their differences and infighting to align in solidarity against those who prevent their full equality, to vote as a bloc to influence elections and thereby make a statement, to elect their own, to use their economic capital, then they would see the expansive rewards of political power. Milk repeatedly pointed out that heterosexual politicians, exemplified by Supervisor Dianne Feinstein, courted the “gay vote” at campaign events but once in office predictably failed to live up to their progressive lip service. The impending vote in the 16th Assembly District heightened Milk’s agitation in this regard, and he challenged the sincerity of candidate John Foran’s sudden interest in gay rights after having not supported Assemblyman Willie Brown’s Consensual Sex Act, which would repeal the century-old statute criminalizing sodomy. In order to deliver a bloc vote, and pointed message, against ballot-weather political “friends,” the GLBTQ community needed first to mobilize. Thus Milk’s call for political power included a battle plan for volunteerism, voter registration, and consolidated endorsements and votes that would not only make a difference in this election but in future elections, gesturing toward his own campaign in 1975. Three such editorials appeared during this week, here in the Sent
inel as well as in the Bay Area Reporter and in The Voice of the Gay Students Coalition at San Francisco State University, for whom he entitled his article, “One Hour a Week, For a Year, To Win Our Rights.”

  . . .

  On Tuesday, May 7th, Officer Fernandez of the Mission Street Police Station came into my shop and told me that if the gays have any complaints about anything, the only way that such complaints will be heard is if we use POLITICAL POWER.

  On Wednesday, May 8th, at a meeting of concerned citizens in the Eureka Valley area which centered around the issue of “straights” vs. “gays,” one of the most vocal leaders of the parents’ groups called for getting rid of the “gay problem” by forces, or, if need be, by use of their POLITICAL POWER and that they, the straights, had the muscle to use such POLITICAL POWER.

  We are told that if we want anything, we need POLITICAL POWER. We are threatened that if we don’t mend our ways, POLITICAL POWER will be used against us.

  The time has come for the gay community to answer. In the past, we have helped elect people to public office, and, once elected, they have not come to our aid one bit. We have been wooed with pretty words and gotten only pretty smiles in return. The time has come to take the advice of the straight community and show our POLITICAL POWER.

  POLITICAL POWER can be shown only in a real vote—a joint vote of all gays—upfront, closet, liberal, conservative, Republican, Democratic . . . all gays once! If we show our total vote strength once, we never have to do it again. We can then return to our many splinter positions. But for once we must drop all our differences and join together and show the actual power we can muster if need be.

  Based upon surveys, only about 40%–55% of the gay community is registered to vote. We must register the remaining percentage. We must do it now.

  If we do that, we then can use that huge bloc of votes, added to those who are already registered, as leverage. We will then have what we are told we need, POLITICAL POWER.

  How can we do this? We need a small army of registrars—approximately 100 gay persons—who are willing to devote all of one hour per week for the next year, to go out and register our gay brothers and sisters. What a price to pay: about 50 hours of work spread over one year. What a small price to pay for so large a gain! And, for the most part, we will even be paid for doing that registration!

  Thus I call upon all in the gay community who want to help achieve a voice that indeed will be not only be heard, but listened to, to meet at 7pm on Wednesday, June 5th, at my shop—575 Castro Street. That is the day after the primary election. What a perfect time to start.

  We are told time and time again by the straight community that we have to achieve POLITICAL POWER if we want anything. I’m for so doing. I ask you to help form a working task force. If you are willing to help in any way . . . if you are committed to Gay Civil Rights . . . if you believe . . . then the time has come . . . it is long overdue.

  We can help somewhat in the coming primary on June 6th by voting for those who are running and have taken outspoken stands on Gay Civil Rights . . . the race for governor leaves only one person among the leaders who has taken such a stand: Bob Moretti. The race for the 16th Assembly leaves only one man: Gene Boyle. Also, consider I ask you to stand by Ed Cragen for Superior Court Judge.

  14

  “Letter to the San Francisco Chronicle about Anti-Gay Editorials”

  Draft, July 1, 1974

  The post-Stonewall annual ritual of marking “gay pride” and the gay rights movement began in San Francisco on June 28, 1970, with a small march by transsexuals down Polk Street, followed that afternoon by the Christopher Street Liberation Day (after its namesake in New York) “gay-in” by hundreds in Golden Gate Park. The theme that year was “Gay Freedom Revolution,” and after a year’s hiatus the Gay Freedom Day festival and parade returned for good in 1972. The theme for the festival in 1974 was “Gay Freedom by ‘76,” attended by an estimated 60,000, with a parade wending through Grant, O’Farrell, and Polk Streets, culminating in a celebration at the Civic Center. Best known is Milk’s appearance and speech during the 1978 Gay Freedom Day, as well as that iconic image of Milk on the parade route, holding a sign saying, “I’m from Woodmere, N.Y.”—a sign he encouraged everyone to bring that year, as he put it in his “Milk Forum” column in the Bay Area Reporter, so as to “come out to your hometown” and prove that GLBTQ people are from everywhere in the United States. But Milk had long enjoyed the festival and understood its political importance. He also knew well the value of the media and proved from the beginning of his political career to be savvy and skilled in the art of enticing, provoking, and manipulating the San Francisco press. Milk was unafraid to throw down the gauntlet with the San Francisco Chronicle, a challenge amplified here by his personification of the paper, indictment of the offending reporter, and patriotic framing of both the event and its homophobic rendering. Milk also knew that such a clash would make good copy.

  . . .

  Dear Editor,

  The fourth of July celebrates an event that, to many people, not only in this country, but throughout the world, stood for the shedding of oppression. The homosexual community is the last minority group in this country that has received no Civil Rights. Last Sunday, we marched not only on the streets of San Francisco, but in many cities in this nation from New York to Anchorage. We marched for several reasons: to show other homosexuals that the time is now for them to come out and to show our straight oppressors that the time is now for them to no longer deny our civil rights.

  The news article written by your person on the parade here in San Francisco was not a news article but an editorial. How can that writer know what the parade means unless he is homosexual? How can that writer understand oppression unless he is homosexual? How do you allow news articles to become editorials? Does that article mean that the Chronicle’s editorial position stands for a continued put down of homosexuals? Does that article mean that the Chronicle still regards every homosexual as a criminal? Does the Chronicle stand for continued repression and oppression of homosexuals?

  The time is now for the Chronicle, the political leaders if this city, the “moral” leaders of this city, the business leaders of this city, and the people of this city to either end their discrimination of homosexuals or have the “manly” guts to come out and say that they remain bigots.

  There may have been fun in the parade, no more or no less than in the Shriners Parades . . . there may have been too much fun for some people . . . but I’ll opt for that anytime given the choice between that way of life and the way of life that the Chronicle has so strongly endorsed . . . the election of Richard Nixon.

  If the Chronicle wished to know what the parade meant, it shouldn’t have sent some uptight bigot to editorialize it . . . just ask the many who carried American flags in the parade. The bearing of the American flags and the demand for Gay Civil Rights was apparently too much for your reporter’s narrow mind.

  I repeat: does the Chronicle stand for Civil Rights for all Citizens or does the Chronicle stand for the continued prejudice of homosexuals?

  15

  “Library or Performing Arts Center”

  Press release, December 4, 1974

  This press release advocating on behalf of the public library was printed on Castro Village Association letterhead, signed by CVA President Harvey Milk. Although this was not a campaign year for Milk, it was politically significant for his successful effort at mobilizing the GLBTQ community under his self-crafted banners of “Buy gay” and “Vote gay,” or “Gay power.” Snubbed by the Eureka Valley Merchants Association, a dozen GLBTQ merchants led by Milk formed the Castro Village Association in 1974, in the back of a pizza parlor, as Randy Shilts tells the story in The Mayor of Castro Street, an organization designed to protect and amass and consolidate economic might and therefore increase its political influence. That August, CVA sponsored its first Castro Street Fair, drawing an estimated 5,000 people. By year’s end CVA had more than 50 membe
rs, including 20 straight merchants and the initially resistant Bank of America and Hibernia Bank, with aspiring politicians in attendance at its meetings.

  In a column for the Bay Area Reporter the same month, Milk noted that some fractious GLBTQ people had criticized the CVA as a means to achieve gay rights. Milk, however, believed it not only to be a means of developing community and resources, a site of gay rights and a platform for his passionate voter registration drive, but as a means of “forming a bridge between the communities.” As Milk had clearly articulated during his first campaign, his populist vision of a city of interdependent neighborhoods sought to make life better for all San Franciscans, even as he was emerging as the champion of GLBTQ San Franciscans. Fighting for the public library exemplified Milk’s call for interconnectedness. That he himself was an aficionado of high culture, especially the opera (Harvey Milk, An Opera In Three Acts, was staged in his memory in Houston, New York, and San Francisco in 1995–1996), made his juxtaposition of the public library and the proposed performing arts center all the more poignant and powerful. In a passage that should be repeated in our own time, Milk averred, “More than any of our other cultural assets, it is the library that currently suffers from neglect. It gets neither publicity nor applause, even though it serves in silence the needs of all and asks no price for services rendered. It provides fantasies for the young, solace for the old, and information for all who seek it.”