Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club
Encyclopedia
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, the Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club is a chapter of the Stonewall Democrats
Stonewall Democrats
The National Stonewall Democrats is an LGBT-rights group based in Washington, D.C. with a political affiliation to the Democratic Party. The word "Stonewall" in its name refers to the 1969 Stonewall riots, a pivotal event in the history of gay rights....
, named after LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
politician and activist Harvey Milk
Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...
. Believing that the existing Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club
Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club
The Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club is a San Francisco-based association and political action committee for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Democrats. Founded in 1971 by activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, Alice was the first organization for gay Democrats in the United States. It...
would never support him in his political aspirations, Milk co-founded the club under the name "San Francisco Gay Democratic Club" in the wake of his unsuccessful 1976 campaign for the California State Assembly
California State Assembly
The California State Assembly is the lower house of the California State Legislature. There are 80 members in the Assembly, representing an approximately equal number of constituents, with each district having a population of at least 420,000...
. Joining Milk in forming the club were a number of the city's activists, including Harry Britt
Harry Britt
Harry Britt is a political activist and former Supervisor for San Francisco, California. Britt was involved during the late 1960s in the civil rights movement when he was a Methodist minister in Chicago...
, Dick Pabich, Jim Rivaldo and first club president Chris Perry.
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 MondaleWalter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...
in Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20% larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is often compared. It is over three miles long east to west, and about half a...
on June 17, 1977. When Mondale began speaking of 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
Moscone-Milk assassinations
The Moscone–Milk assassinations were the killings of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, who were shot and killed in San Francisco City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White on November 27, 1978...
in 1978, the club changed its name to the Harvey Milk Democratic Club in his memory. The club bills itself as the largest Democratic club in San Francisco.
The club was an inadvertent catalyst of a journalistic scandal for CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
. CBS News producers George Crile
George Crile III
George Crile III was an U.S. American journalist most closely associated with his three decades of work at CBS News.-Personal:...
and Grace Diekhaus manipulated footage of an appearance by Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is the senior U.S. Senator from California. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served in the Senate since 1992. She also served as 38th Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988....
and included it in the 1980 documentary Gay Power, Gay Politics
Gay Power, Gay Politics
CBS Reports: 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. Crile also produced the episode with co-producer Grace Diekhaus...
. The National News Council
National News Council
The National News Council 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 sources...
found that this manipulation was a breach of journalistic ethics.
With the onset of the AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
epidemic, the Milk Club was an early advocate of closing down the city's gay bathhouse
Gay bathhouse
Gay bathhouses, also known as gay saunas or steam baths, are commercial bathhouses for men to have sex with other men. In gay slang in some regions these venues are also known colloquially as "the baths" or "the tubs," and should not be confused with public bathing.Not all men who visit gay...
s. The club also created some of the earliest safe sex
Safe sex
Safe sex is sexual activity engaged in by people who have taken precautions to protect themselves against sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS. It is also referred to as safer sex or protected sex, while unsafe or unprotected sex is sexual activity engaged in without precautions...
education materials in the country.