(no subject)
Click to view"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 Byrants who are trying to constitutionalize bigotry.
We are not going to allow that to happen. We are not going to sit back in silence as 300,000 of our gay sisters and brothers did in Nazi Germany. We are not going to allow our rights to be taken away and then march with bowed heads into the gas chambers.
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 quietly 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 truth 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. I know that it is hard and that it will hurt them, but think of how they will hurt you in the voting booths.
Jimmy Carter, you talk about human rights. You want to be the world's leader for human rights. There are 15 to 20 million gay people in this nation. When are you going to talk about their rights?
If you do not speak out, if you remain silent... then I call upon lesbian and gay people from all over the nation, your nation, to gather in Washington one year from now... on that very same spot where over a decade ago, Dr. Martin Luther King spoke to a nation of his dreams, dreams that are fast fading, dreams that to many in this nation have become nightmares rather than dreams. I call upon all minorities and especially the millions of lesbians and gay men to wake up from their dreams, to gather in Washington and tell Jimmy Carter and their nation: 'Wake up. Wake up, America. No more racism. No more sexism. No more hatred. No more... And to the bigots. To the John Briggs, to the Anita Bryants... and all their ilk: Let me remind you what America is.
Listen carefully:
On the Statue of Liberty, it says, 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free...'In the Declaration of Independence, it is written: 'All men are created equal and they are endowed with certain inalienable rights...'
And in our national anthem, it says: 'Oh, say does that star- spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free...'
For Mr. Briggs and Ms. Bryant... and all the bigots out there: That's what America is. No matter how hard you try, you cannot erase those words from the Declaration of Independence. No matter how hard you try, you cannot chip those words off the base of the Statue of Liberty. And no matter how hard you try, you cannot sing the 'Star Spangled Banner' without these words. That's what America is.
Love it or leave it."
-HARVEY MILK, GAY FREEDOM DAY 1978