Drag Kids - Harvey Milk
The first openly-gay figure to appear on a U.S. postage stamp teaches us, albeit indirectly, an important lesson about the fall of nations
Earlier last week, during a period of research for a separate article, I was on the prowl for articles about Harvey Milk’s history as a sexual predator; a pretty normal way to wind down on a Sunday evening. During my search, I encountered an article from a pro-LGBT magazine in Australia, the Star Observer, published in 2011 titled “Milk Pedophile Claim.” In it, the article discusses the claim by conservative group SaveCalifornia that Harvey Milk sexually preyed upon young men and boys. In response, they say the following:
In 1964, in his early 30s, Milk began a relationship with Jack McKinley, a theatrical stage manager who was 16 years old when they met in New York.
The age of consent in California is 18. The SaveCalifornia group, which campaigns almost exclusively in opposition to GLBT rights, says this means that children are being made to celebrate a “sexual predator” in schools even though the age of consent is 16 in most US states.
McKinley was over 18 when he and Milk first travelled together to California.
Only arguing about the age of consent and not the implications of an early 30’s man starting a relationship with a 16-year-old boy and eventually convincing him at 18 to cross the country, Star Observer quite atrociously misses the point. Apparently, they see no issue with the overarching principle, though I wonder whether they’d be as gracious if it were a male public official preying upon a 16-year-old girl.
But the real “money-shot,” if you will, of the article is its closing statement: “SaveCalifornia claims that celebrating Harvey Milk will lead to school children participating in ‘cross-dressing contests, mock gay-pride parades and mock gay weddings.’”
Well, isn’t this a little awkward?
SaveCalifornia’s prediction was, of course, 100% correct. A very recent example comes to mind, specifically that of the Manhattan private school that forced its students to attend a drag show hosted in a church at the beginning of the school year. Grace Church High School invited Jesse Havea, who performs as “Brita Filter” in drag, to sing a rendition of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” (I use the word “sing” hesitantly). Students of the supposedly “Catholic” school said they felt pressure to participate, and to “pretend that this was normal for church.”
Another school pulled a similar stunt just four months prior, when the Austin Independent School District declared a “Pride Week” for its students and allowed a school to host a pride parade in their halls during school hours. The students in the parade, all masked, are corralled through the halls by robotic faculty in oversized sweaters and unflattering haircuts. At least half the kids there are pretty clearly just going along for the ride to get out of whatever critical race theory class would have been occurring otherwise. SaveCalifornia 2, Star Observer 0.
And, last but not least, mock gay weddings. Surely that was the one that didn’t come true, right? Unfortunately, it did, when Silverado High School in Victorville, CA hosted six simultaneous mock gay marriages during their lunch break as part of a demonstration by the “Gay-Straight Alliance.” The school group even said that they had anticipated a worse backlash, with an alliance co-sponsor and teacher voicing her praise of the demonstration. And the most unfathomable part: this happened in 2005.
Even by the time the Star Observer article was written (2011), it was incorrect about SaveCalifornia’s predictions (at least one of which had already happened). But, enough about the sexual predators of the twenty-first century; let’s get back to Harvey Milk.
His biographer, Randy Shilts, wrote that Milk targeted underage boys whom he knew had unstable environments and would prime them with drugs and alcohol. Milk, who was dishonorably discharged from the Navy in 1955 over sexual misconduct, was quite open about his polygamous lifestyle, stating that homosexuals at large have to be “developing [their] own lifestyle. There’s no reason why you can’t love more than one person at a time.”
It’s not far-fetched to say that SaveCalifornia’s original prediction was not merely a hunch but rather firmly rooted in historical precedent. Both Greece and the Roman Empire had rampant sexuality between older men and young boys before their fall. Ethnologist J.D. Unwin once stated that all civilizations are “free to choose either to display great energy or to enjoy sexual freedom,” and that they “cannot do both for more than one generation” if they wish to preserve themselves. Historian Arnold Toynbee, in his 12-volume book A Study of History, analyzed the rise and fall of more than twenty civilizations in history; his conclusion was that the fall of a civilization, while not inevitable, can be caused largely by the political and social despotism of minority factions (sound familiar?).
America is at a very grave crossroads, with one road leading towards the fall of the empire and another towards civilized culture and society. If you doubt it, just remember the old adage: “When you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything.”