US Navy Named a Ship After Harvey Milk To Show Its LGBT Pride

The USNS Harvey Milk is the first navy ship to be named after a member of the LGBT community—and, like the brave advocate it is named after, it will take its message of equality everywhere.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Navy officially commemorated the new USNS Harvey Milk, a 677-foot fleet oiler and first navy ship to be named after a member of the LGBTQ community.

It was the latest of many milestones for Milk, who was assassinated a year after he became the first openly gay person elected to political office in California, having won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977.

Milk was honored in a ship naming ceremony Tuesday on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay by the likes of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, who echoed the late LGBT rights advocate when he remarked that “a more diverse force is a stronger force.”

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, members of Milk’s family, and ship sponsor Paula Neira ... were among those in attendance at Tuesday’s ceremony.

“It is important to note that the Navy is not only celebrating someone who was openly gay but also now celebrating someone whom they themselves once did anything but celebrate: a person who they forced to resign simply because of who he was,” Stuart Milk, Harvey’s nephew and leader of the Harvey Milk Foundation, told The Daily Beast.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/20/how-the-us-navy-named-a-ship-after-harvey-milk-to-show-its-lgbt-pride.html