In a move igniting national controversy, U.S. Defense Secretary and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth has officially renamed the Navy supply vessel once known as the USNS Harvey Milk. The ship will now be called the USNS Oscar V. Peterson. Hegseth posted a video announcement on Twitter, But for LGBTQ Americans, this change feels deeply political. Harvey Milk was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the U.S., winning a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977.
He served in the Navy during the Korean War, but was forced out with a less-than-honorable discharge simply for being gay. Milk became a symbol of hope and pride for queer Americans, famously urging queer people to come out in his 1978 “Hope Speech” to fight “the conspiracy of silence.”
The ship was originally named after Milk in 2016 as part of a broader Navy effort to honor civil rights leaders, including Sojourner Truth, John Lewis, and Dolores Huerta. But Hegseth has reversed those decisions, ordering all such ships to be renamed as the current administration moves away from what it calls “divisive” diversity efforts. Oscar V. Peterson, the ship’s new namesake, was a white Navy hero from World War II, posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. He was not publicly connected to any LGBTQ or civil rights causes.
Progressive veterans group VoteVets called the timing deliberate and damaging, saying,
“To erase [Milk’s] name now — during Pride Month — is no innocent bureaucratic decision.”
Harvey Milk was assassinated in 1978. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2009.
