Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club

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Based in San Francisco, California, the Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club is a chapter of the Stonewall Democrats, named after LGBT politician and activist Harvey Milk. Believing that the existing Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club 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. Joining Milk in forming the club were a number of the city's activists, including Harry Britt, Dick Pabich, Jim Rivaldo and first club president Chris Perry. [2]

San Francisco Consolidated city-county in California, United States

San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. San Francisco is the 13th-most populous city in the United States, and the fourth-most populous in California, with 884,363 residents as of 2017. It covers an area of about 46.89 square miles (121.4 km2), mostly at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, making it the second-most densely populated large US city, and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. San Francisco is also part of the fifth-most populous primary statistical area in the United States, the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area.

California State of the United States of America

California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U.S. state and the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento. The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 9.7 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, and the country's second most populous, after New York City. California also has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs.

Stonewall Democrats

Stonewall Democrats, also known in some states as LGBT Democrats, is the official caucus within the Democratic Party that advocates for issues that are relevant to LGBT Americans. The caucus primarily operates through individual chapters supporting LGBT rights and affiliated with the Democratic Party.

Contents

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. [2]

History

One of the club's early actions was to demonstrate at a speech given by Vice-president Walter Mondale in Golden Gate Park 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. [3]

Walter Mondale 42nd Vice President of the United States

Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American politician, diplomat and lawyer who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A United States senator from Minnesota (1964–1976), he was the Democratic Party's nominee in the United States presidential election of 1984, but lost to Ronald Reagan in an Electoral College landslide. Reagan won 49 states while Mondale carried his home state of Minnesota and District of Columbia. He became the oldest-living former U.S. vice president after the death of George H. W. Bush in 2018.

Golden Gate Park large park in San Francisco, California

Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, United States, is a large urban park consisting of 1,017 acres (412 ha) of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the development of Golden Gate Park. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20 percent larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is often compared. It is over three miles (4.8 km) long east to west, and about half a mile (0.8 km) north to south. With 13 million visitors annually, Golden Gate is the fifth most-visited city park in the United States after Central Park in New York City, Lincoln Park in Chicago, and Balboa and Mission Bay Parks in San Diego.

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 the largest Democratic club in San Francisco. [4]

The club was an inadvertent catalyst of a journalistic scandal for CBS. CBS News producers George Crile and Grace Diekhaus manipulated footage of an appearance by Dianne Feinstein and included it in the 1980 documentary Gay Power, Gay Politics . The National News Council found that this manipulation was a breach of journalistic ethics. [5]

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 events and issues accurately and fairly.

CBS is an American English language commercial broadcast television and radio network that is a flagship property of CBS Corporation. The company is headquartered at the CBS Building in New York City with major production facilities and operations in New York City and Los Angeles.

George Crile III American television journalist

George Crile III was an American journalist most closely associated with his three decades of work at CBS News.

With the onset of the AIDS epidemic, the Milk Club was an early advocate of closing down the city's gay bathhouses. The club also created some of the earliest safe sex education materials in the country. [6]

Gay bathhouse sauna or bathhouse intended to be used for sex between men

A gay bathhouse, also known as a gay sauna or a gay steambath, is a commercial space for men to have sex with other men. In gay slang, a bathhouse may be called just "the baths," "the sauna" or "the tubs". In general, a gay bath is used for having sexual activity rather than only bathing.

Safe sex

Safe sex is sexual activity using methods or devices to reduce the risk of transmitting or acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs), especially HIV. "Safe sex" is also sometimes referred to as safer sex or protected sex to indicate that some safe sex practices do not completely eliminate STI risks. It is also sometimes used to describe methods aimed at preventing pregnancy.

Notes

  1. ↑ "Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club". Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  2. 1 2 Shilts (1982), p. 150
  3. ↑ Shilts (1982), p. 161
  4. ↑ "The Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club". The Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club. August 2008. Retrieved 2008-09-08.
  5. ↑ Rutledge, p. 152
  6. ↑ Shilts (1987), p. 280

See also

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

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References

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