Milk

Today marks the 30th anniversary of Harvey Milk's assassination. To honor Milk's life, thirty or so of us including Mark Solomon, Chris Mason, Don Gorton and Ryan MacNeely held a candle light vigil before going to the movie's premier last night. Sean Penn is incredible in this role, it is as if he channelled Milk's soul while portraying him, and he will undoubtedly win the Oscar for his role. It is a must see, not only for the gay community but for those who have any compassion or hope in their hearts that tomorrow will be better than yesterday and today. I strongly encourage everyone to see this movie with friends and to talk about what lessons we have learned, and the similarities we see in equality's opponents today. Let's make this movie the blockbuster hit it deserves to be and destroy the closet doors some would have us live our entire lives in.

We must all reach within ourselves and find the rowdy citizen within that made Milk great, doing so in a way that shows both resolve for our own needs while being sympathetic to how misinformed the majority is.

In a time when we are defeated by proposition 8 let us remember that Harvey Milk lost his first three tries at winning an election. We need to come together and be a united front against discrimination of all forms, so that our communities will be safer and our lives will be happier. I hope all of you see the importance of this opportunity to stand behind a common cause and rally your friends to it.

This is not about the GLBT community, this is about hope. Hope that one day we will see for ourselves the vision leaders like Harvey Milk had for us. Our greatness as a nation relies not on conformity, but rather on individuality. We are not great in spite of our differences, we are great because of it.