Based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, the Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Democratic Club is a chapter of the

Stonewall Democrats Stonewall Democrats, also known in some states as LGBT Democrats, is a caucus within the Democratic Party that advocates for issues that are relevant to LGBT Americans. The caucus primarily operates through individual chapters or political clubs s ...

, named after

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

politician and activist

Harvey Milk Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was born and raised in N ...

. Believing that the existing

Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club The Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club (first known as The Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club) is a San Francisco-based association and political action committee for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Democrats. The political ...

would never support him in his political aspirations, Milk co-founded the

political club The political club is a feature of Urban politics in the United States, American urban politics usually representing a Political parties in the United States, particular party in a Neighbourhood, neighborhood. They were most prominent in the later ...

under the name "San Francisco Gay Democratic Club" in the wake of his unsuccessful 1976 campaign for the

California State Assembly The California State Assembly is the lower house of the California State Legislature, the upper house being the California State Senate. The Assembly convenes, along with the State Senate, at the California State Capitol in Sacramento. The A ...

. Joining Milk in forming the club were a number of the city's activists, including

Harry Britt Harry Britt (June 8, 1938 – June 24, 2020) was an American political activist and politician in San Francisco. Britt was involved during the late-1960s in the civil rights movement when he was a Methodist minister in Chicago. He was first appoin ...

, Dick Pabich, Jim Rivaldo, and first club president Chris Perry.Shilts (1982), p. 150 The club set forth the following as its organizing statement:

No decisions which affect our lives should be made without the gay voice being heard. We want our fair share of city services. We want openly gay people appointed and elected to city offices—people who reflect the diversity of our community. We want the schools of San Francisco to provide full exposure to and positive appreciation of gay lifestyles. We are asking no more than we deserve: We will not settle for less.

History

One of the club's early actions was to demonstrate at a speech given by Vice President

Walter Mondale Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928 – April 19, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesota ...

Golden Gate Park Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, United States, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the development ...

on June 17, 1977. When Mondale began speaking about human rights in Latin America, demonstrators held up signs demanding a statement on human rights in the United States. When a demonstrator verbally challenged Mondale to say something about gay rights, Mondale angrily left the stage. Following the assassination of Harvey Milk in 1978, the club changed its name to the Harvey Milk Democratic Club in his memory. The club bills itself as one of the largest Democratic clubs in San Francisco. The club was an inadvertent catalyst of a

journalistic scandal Journalism scandals are high-profile incidents or acts, whether intentional or accidental, that run contrary to the generally accepted ethics and standards of journalism, or otherwise violate the 'ideal' mission of journalism: to report news eve ...

for

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...

. CBS News producers George Crile and Grace Diekhaus manipulated footage of an appearance by

Dianne Feinstein Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein ( ; born Dianne Emiel Goldman; June 22, 1933) is an American politician who serves as the senior United States senator from California, a seat she has held since 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, she was ...

and included it in the 1980 documentary ''

Gay Power, Gay Politics "Gay Power, Gay Politics" is a 1980 episode of the American documentary television series ''CBS Reports''. It was anchored by Harry Reasoner with reportage by George Crile III, George Crile. Crile also produced the episode with co-producer Grace Di ...

''. The

National News Council The National News Council (NNC) was a non-profit media watchdog organization. It investigated complaints of media bias and unfair reporting. The NNC formed in 1973 with a grant from the Twentieth Century Foundation, the Markle Foundation and other s ...

found that this manipulation was a breach of journalistic ethics. With the onset of the

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

epidemic, the Milk Club was an early advocate of closing down the city's

gay bathhouse A gay bathhouse, also known as a gay sauna or a gay steambath (uncommonly known as a gay spa), is a commercial space for gay, bisexual, and other men to have sex with men. In gay slang, a bathhouse may be called just "the baths", "the sauna", ...

s. The club also created some of the earliest

safe sex Safe sex is sexual activity using methods or contraceptive devices (such as condoms) to reduce the risk of transmitting or acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs), especially HIV. "Safe sex" is also sometimes referred to as safer se ...

education materials in the country.

SFPD Apology

Shortly before San Francisco's annual

Pride parade A pride parade (also known as pride march, pride event, or pride festival) is an outdoor event celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer culture, queer (LGBTQ) social and self-acceptance, achievements, LGBT rights by country o ...

in 2019, a year that marked the 40th anniversary of the

White Night riots The White Night riots were a series of violent events sparked by an announcement of a lenient sentencing of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco, and of Harvey Milk, a member of the city's Board of Supe ...

, the Milk Club's Executive Board penned an open letter calling on the San Francisco Police Department to apologize for historic acts of violence against the city's LGBTQ community, including the ACT UP Castro Sweep in 1989, the White Night riot in 1979, and the

Compton's Cafeteria riot The Compton's Cafeteria riot occurred in August 1966 in the Tenderloin, San Francisco, California, Tenderloin district of San Francisco. The riot was a response to the violent and constant police harassment of drag queens and trans people, partic ...

in 1966. During San Francisco's 2019 Pride parade, the SFPD engaged in a violent confrontation with a group of LGBTQ protesters who blocked the parade, calling for an end to corporate sponsorships of Pride. The Milk Club released another letter shortly after, condemning the SFPD's actions at Pride. “The irony of SFPD committing acts of brutality against peaceful protesters of the Resistance Contingent at the San Francisco Pride Parade on the 50th Anniversary of Stonewall is not lost on us,” the Milk Club wrote. “It warrants outrage and swift recourse.” On August 26, 2019, SFPD leadership held a community meeting during which Chief William Scott said, "we the members of the San Francisco Police Department are here to reflect and apologize for our past actions against the LGBTQ community. We want to listen to you and want to truly hear you, we will atone for our past.” While Scott's apology was met with "exuberant applause from the room," some attendees at the meeting expressed their concern about the ways in which the SFPD currently discriminates against LGBTQ people. Anubis Daugherty, a young LGBTQ community member who was homeless for six years, told Scott that LGBTQ people are disproportionately caught up in sweeps of homeless communities in The City. “I was born here, I was raised here,” Daugherty said. “If you want to truly apologize for something you have to stop what you’re doing.”

Notes

References

* Rutledge, Leigh (1992). ''The Gay Decades''. New York, Penguin. . * * Shilts, Randy (1987). ''And The Band Played On''. New York, St. Martin's Press. .

External links

Harvey Milk Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Democratic Club official site

Stonewall Democrats official site
{{Authority control LGBT liberalism LGBT political advocacy groups in California California Democratic Party LGBT affiliate organizations of political parties Harvey Milk Democratic Party (United States) organizations 1970s establishments in California

History

SFPD Apology

Notes

See also

References

External links