On National Coming Out Day, Will Closeted Power Gays Listen to Harvey Milk?

Harvey Milk

Today's National Coming Out Day for gays and lesbians, and we can't think of a better time for closeted power gays -- folks who hold powerful positions, and are therefore highly influential, in politics, industry, and elsewhere -- to take the leap.

As gay rights icon Harvey Milk pointed out many years ago, coming out is absolutely essential to ending discrimination and violence against the gay community, and it'll probably one of the most self-empowering personal acts you'll ever make. In 1978, Milk explained it this way...

"My name is Harvey Milk, and I want to recruit you. I want to recruit you for the fight to preserve democracy from the John Briggs and Anita Bryants who are trying to constitutionalize bigotry...

"On this anniversary of Stonewall, I ask my gay sisters and brothers to make the commitment to fight. For themselves, for their freedom, for their country...

"Gay people, we will not win our rights by staying silently in our closets...

"We are coming out. We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I'm going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out. Come out to your parents, your relatives."

Amen.

Contact Patrick Range McDonald at pmcdonald@laweekly.com.