HARVEY MILK

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Trump cancel culture hits Navy ship named after gay rights activist

The Pentagon is planning to strip the name 'HArvey Milk' that honors the gay rights icon. and could expand the purge to include other vessels recognizing prominent civil rights figures, defense officials said on June 2, 2025, the latest move by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to impose the Trump administration’s will on America’s culture wars. The renaming news was slated to become public June 13. A new name for the 'Harvey Milk' was not given but Hegseth and Phelan are planning to announce the new name aboard the USS 'Constitution', the oldest commissioned Navy ship. Deliberations were ongoing after a recent order by Hegseth to Navy Secretary John Phelan, with the decision to be announced as soon as mid-June, to coincide with Pride Month, which President Donald Trump has rejected celebrating. It was unclear when — or even if — any other Navy vessels honoring civil rights figures could see their titles changed. Sean Parnell, a spokesman for Hegseth, released a statement acknowledging that a review is underway that could result in the renaming of Defense Department installations and resources. Among them were the USNS 'Thurgood Marshall', USNS 'Ruth Bader Ginsburg', USNS 'Harriet Tubman', USNS 'Dolores Huerta', USNS 'Lucy Stone', USNS 'Cesar Chavez' and USNS 'Medgar Evers'. A web article from the Naval Sea Systems Command from Dec 2024 about the laying of the keel for the future USNS 'Thurgood Marshall' has been deleted. The reported decision by the Trump Administration to change the names of the USNS Harvey Milk and other ships in the John Lewis-class is a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream," Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi told in a statement. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stated that the move was "an utter abomination in terms of the extreme MAGA Republican effort to continue to erase American history, and we're not going to allow it to happen." Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Hegseth "should be ashamed of himself and reverse this immediately." Milk became one of the first openly gay elected officials in U.S. history during the 1970s, making him an icon of the nascent gay civil rights movement, and was killed while serving on the board of supervisors in San Francisco. Milk came from a family that had a history of naval service and he was commissioned as an officer in 1951. Milk then served as a diving officer on the submarine rescue ship USS 'Kittiwake' during the Korean War. He left the service as a lieutenant junior grade in 1955 with a "less than honorable" discharge "after being officially questioned about his sexual orientation," according to his official biography. Milk then went on to run for political office in California, winning a seat on the San Francisco board of supervisors in 1977. He was killed in office in 1978 shortly after passing a bill banning housing and employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. His death transformed Milk into an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the LGBTQ community. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. The USNS 'Harvey Milk' is currently completing maintenance and refit work at a shipyard in Alabama that is expected to wrap up by the end of June.