{"id":156041,"date":"2025-06-03T23:42:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T23:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/156041\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T23:42:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T23:42:17","slug":"usns-harvey-milk-united-states-secretary-of-defense-pete-hegseth-orders-renaming-of-navy-ship-honoring-gay-rights-activist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/156041\/","title":{"rendered":"USNS Harvey Milk: United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth orders renaming of Navy ship honoring gay rights activist"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to strike the name of pioneering gay rights activist Harvey Milk from one of its ships, orchestrating the change as Pride month celebrations take place.<\/p>\n

A defense official said the timing of the decision was intentional.<\/p>\n

The order was first reported by Military.com and confirmed by ABC News.<\/p>\n

FULL VIDEO: ‘Murder at City Hall: The killing of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk’<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The ABC7 Originals documentary, “Murder at City Hall: The Killing of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk,” tells the story like never before.<\/p>\n

Milk was one of the first openly gay men elected to public office in the United States after winning a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. He was assassinated a year later.<\/p>\n

Before serving in public office, Milk in 1951 enlisted in the Navy and attended Officer Candidate School in Rhode Island.<\/p>\n

He then was a Navy diving instructor in San Diego but resigned in 1955 “after being officially questioned about his sexual orientation,” according to the Harvey Milk Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both his mother and his father also served in the U.S. Navy in World War I.<\/p>\n

MORE: USNS Harvey Milk arrives in San Francisco Bay Area for 1st time<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The USNS Harvey Milk is one of several ships named after prominent civil rights leaders and activists. A new name has not been announced.<\/p>\n

Before his death, Milk was credited with encouraging his friend and artist Gilbert Baker, a U.S. Army veteran to create the Pride flag. Milk was played by Sean Penn in the 2008 biographical film “Milk.”<\/p>\n

Hegseth and Navy Secretary John Phelan did not immediately respond to requests for comment from ABC News.<\/p>\n

\"Now<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 ABC News Internet Ventures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to strike the name of pioneering gay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[66271,57856,6096,49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-156041","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-66271","9":"tag-abc-news","10":"tag-national","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-us","13":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114622086823219496","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}