Sean Penn To Lobby For Harvey Milk Day

SAN FRANCISCO — Fresh from his best actor Oscar for his performance as Harvey Milk, Sean Penn is pushing California to officially recognize the late gay politician's birthday.

State Senator Mark Leno plans to reintroduce a bill Tuesday with Penn by his side designating Milk's birthday a "day of significance."

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the same bill last year.

In his veto message, the governor said Milk should be honored in San Francisco but not statewide.

Leno says Penn's award shows that Schwarzenegger's argument about Milk being only of provincial interest no longer holds up.

Comments

[CuriousInSeattle]

07:08 PM on 03/04/2009

Just give him the day so Sean can shut up and go away. Heck California should have a Milk month. How about May. Feel better.

[dnddays]

02:01 PM on 03/04/2009

Lincoln, King, Milk.

[mirm100]

11:59 AM on 03/04/2009

Harvey Milk deserves to be remembered & honored. With his own day? Why just one day? So that one day will bring us ‘awareness’? I applaud the idea…and hope that a current mayor or governor from CA will approve such a day. (am I holding my breath?) Question is … will this be a another 45% deal? So ‘we’ get support and awareness for one day, but the next day ... things are back to square one.. no rights no nothing….
Puhlease! Forget gay marriage … just for once .. forget about it. We all have our own agenda’s but we have to find common ground. If anything that is what Harvey Milk brought forward. Gay marriage in the United States, as it is, will not bring us equal rights. We need the full 100% of what others get when they get married.
Fortunately I am from a country where Gay Marriage is a non-issue and many other countries have jumped on that same bandwagon [insert: small cheerleader jump]. That same marriage means nada as soon as I enter the US border, infact… I had my status reversed in my passport…. As it gave me too many issues enter the USA. (you gotta love US Immigration …… I spent 4 hrs in the presense of ignorance...... )
Forget Harvey Milk Day … make it HARVEY MILK MONTH … or Harvey Milk YEAR!

[notconfindtweenhatnboots]

11:19 PM on 03/03/2009

Hey Sean.. How about lobbying for a "thank your wife for putting up with you" day...

You must be a real treat to live with. Ungrateful b st rd.

[dnddays]

02:03 PM on 03/04/2009

Penn was married to Madonna and for that he deserves our undying sympathy and understanding.

[notconfindtweenhatnboots]

09:48 PM on 03/05/2009

Robin doesn't deserve to be punished for any of that though. .

[Gary Gray]

10:49 PM on 03/03/2009

As usual any thing Gay is shoved under the bus or at least sent to the back of the bus. When are the people who write these angry homophobic replies going to understand that it is not us against you, but we are all in this together. I am a white boy (old man) from the south who is appalled at the racism I see every day, but GLBT people are not your enemy. Predjucice and bigotry are! Just give us a little respect. We are only asking for a day of rememberence, not a postage stamp or a holiday.

[elr50]

05:13 PM on 03/04/2009

Gary, you are almost right. Prejudice, bigotry and STUPIDITY are!

[Xenussister]

09:21 PM on 03/03/2009

"The fact that muscle brained AHHHNOLD vetoed this idea in the first place shows how disgusting and behind the times Republicans truly are."

Yep. The bigotry and ignorance shown in so many of these Comments are appalling and show how far there is to go. Nobody's asking for a federal holiday, just a Remembrance Day, which Harvey Milk deserves. I'm a straight married woman from the midwest, and yet Harvey Milk touched my life and heart and soul. I certainly wouldn't mind if it were a national Remembrance Day, not just in California.

It would be nice if George Moscone were honored too though. He was a liberal visionary, way ahead of his time, and as much as I loved the movie Milk (saw it 4 times in the theater, cried with joy when it won the Oscars) I'd love to see a movie about Moscone at some point. He was a very interesting man.

[MountPanic]

07:10 PM on 03/03/2009

Things like Harvey Milk's significance (or even Barack Obama's) are not limited to the minorities they come from. These are breakthroughs for ALL of us, and part of the heritage to which all Americans who believe in better tomorrows are heir.

[antaeus]

05:11 PM on 03/03/2009

This isn't about a vocal minority craving its own plaster saint. Milk was a seminal figure in an important national trend, and his influence continues to reverberate in California and beyond. His role in helping to defeat the Briggs Amendment alone should merit more recognition in the California school system.

We're not all female, black, or migrant farm workers, but the larger community still recognizes leaders from those backgrounds whose efforts have changed the course of society.

[bigdem56]

04:57 PM on 03/03/2009

Sean Penn has become my new hero....

[leonidasofsparta]

06:10 PM on 03/03/2009

A Day of Significance is obviously not something to joke about.

[ProudLiberalDan]

04:15 PM on 03/03/2009

A "Day of Significance" is not a holiday. It won't harm anybody.

If we can have a whole month for Black History, which I support, then we can have one day where Harvey Milk is honored.

[scorpioleidy]

03:41 PM on 03/03/2009

Oh, puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez !

[NicoleSF]

03:20 PM on 03/03/2009

Although his career was very significant, he wasn't killed because he was gay - the person who killed both Milk and Moscone was mentally ill and wanted his job back. But MLK was killed because he was black - that was the only reason.

[ProudLiberalDan]

04:11 PM on 03/03/2009

That's historical revisionism. Milk was killed in part because he was gay. It was not the only reason.

White could have blown away any other Supervisor, but he went after Milk for what he represented.

[NicoleSF]

04:52 PM on 03/03/2009

I think that was because Milk agreed with Moscone that White shouldn't have his job back although maybe it's not possible to know what White was thinking - he was obviously mentally ill so he might not having been thinking "I'm going to kill this man because he is gay and they're getting too powerful" or anything coherent. I've met people who knew both of them and they said Milk and White used to meet occasionally to talk about what was happening in the city - I don't know if that is accurate or not.

[Eric8869]

05:52 PM on 03/03/2009

Wrong - what's not even in the MILK film is Dan White's constant fear mongering of his base against gay people. Telling people that the male police officers will be running around San Fran in a dress etc.

Dan White killed Harvey Milk because he was gay and successful and Dan was an angry pathetic loser.

[kittykali]

02:56 PM on 03/03/2009

i love this man so much

[Sally Read]

02:49 PM on 03/03/2009

I agree with woodcut. It's a nice idea, but not where our energy should go.

[tokenconservative]

01:29 PM on 03/03/2009

Sean Penn - domestic abuser, but gay rights advocate. What a great guy.

[Melissa]

06:56 PM on 03/04/2009

What a silly idea.

[notconfindtweenhatnboots]

09:49 PM on 03/05/2009

He's been arrested for spousal battery.