"Pro-Queer Day in Schools:" Local Columnist Questions "Glorification" of Harvey Milk

Local columnist Ted Hickman published a story in the Independent Voice this week about the celebration of Harvey Milk Day in California schools. In his column, Hickman questions whether the state should be “glorifying the country’s first openly gay man elected to public office.”

Hickman gave us permission to run the column in full so that the community has a chance to discuss it on a local level. He provided the following statement as context for the column: "The only thing people should know is this column makes people think and the readership in this area is quite diverse in their opinions... I run things that tread on both sides of the fence on many issues." 

Here’s the column in full, which can also be found at TedHickman.com. The title is "Ka-rear Day," and it's slightly different than the Independent Voice version. Share your thoughts in the comments below: 

I heard two days ago was Harvey Milk day in all California schools…with a glamorized book and all. Did your child come home asking about the contents of their new book (or even tell you about it) or ask you to explain how guys doing guys is a “normal,” and now accepted thing? Does the glorification of the country’s “first openly gay man elected to public office” seem worthy of child indoctrination in every school in California? Do you find this kind of hard to swallow?   

My conservative friends have asked if there will also be a Dan White Day where crackers and Twinkies will be served to each student with the explanation of another San Francisco man, former police officer and elected official whose life style led to express his beliefs in an entirely different way. I think probably not…I don’t think he will even receive a mention in schools… which will unbalance the whole Ying/Yang thing going on in this crazy state. 
  
(Daniel James “Dan” White (September 2, 1946 – October 21, 1985) was an elected San Francisco supervisor who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, on Monday, November 27, 1978, at City Hall. In a controversial verdict that led to the coining of the legal slang “Twinkie defense,” White was convicted of manslaughter rather than murder in the deaths of Milk and Moscone. White served five years of a seven-year prison sentence. Less than two years after his release, he returned to San Francisco and (reportedly) committed suicide. San Francisco Weekly (surprise!) has referred to White as “perhaps the most hated man in San Francisco’s history.“)  

Before you bruise your typing finger with the few screams we’ll get about being “homophobic” or “anti-gay” or “racist” or any of the other crap I get on rare occasion from the few left wing nuts who read this column, let me tell you something. The vast majority of our readers, both here and on line, are hard working, taxpaying, citizens who are also entitled to their opinions. If they are upset about their government sneaking in a pro-queer day in public schools, they have that right. Now California, “The land of fruits and nuts,” can brag about it being the land of Milk and Twinkies too, with only Milk being forced fed in schools. 
  
 Like I’ve said many times I thought “don’t ask-don’t tell” was a fair, good thing. I don’t care where Harvey stuck what, where or with whom as long as it was between consenting adults in private. But now the Demon-crats have succeeded in making their gay life style appear to be acceptable to the majority and are being forced on to school children state wide…They think this is acceptable to the majority…butt I don’t believe that to be true.
 
I guess time will tell. This is where their rush to get millions of undocumented demon-crats citizenship may backfire. Most of those waiting for citizenship are God-fearing, religious, down to earth folks who listen to their church leaders and don’t buy this “gay is good,” or “ marry whatever you want”  fad currently underway.