Pete Hegseth's Reason for Renaming USNS Harvey Milk Is Homophobic

TMZ

Pete Hegseth is using homophobic reasoning to attack the legacy of an American icon, which could lead to him banning gay people from the military next ... so says our very own Harvey Levin.

Transcript

00:00This is anything but petty. I would like you to indulge me for just a couple of minutes

00:09because I want to tell you a story about me and how Harvey Milk made a difference in my life.

00:18So early on in my life, when I was a teenager, I realized that I had a secret that I felt I had to keep, my sexuality.

00:33And I hid it, and it became the center of everything, that the most important thing for me was to hide that,

00:42and that every aspect of my life was affected, with my friends, with my family.

00:48I had to pretend that I was somebody other than who I was, and I had to act on that.

00:56And it affected my entire life.

01:01I, you know, for years, for years, I would cut off friendships when I got too close to a friend

01:08because I could not expose that secret.

01:11I was ashamed.

01:13And I got to tell you, I was in the Air National Guard, and it made it clear there

01:21that if they ever found out, I would be dishonorably discharged.

01:26So I hid that.

01:28I want to talk about Harvey Milk because he came along in the 70s, and he showed incredible courage.

01:37He was an openly gay man who was proud to say he was.

01:43He was fighting for basic rights, to be who you are.

01:49And Harvey Milk did this, you know, by, you know, protesting and doing things that people didn't do back then.

01:57And he got elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and became a leader there until he was assassinated.

02:09And Harvey Milk helped me become myself and become who I was and kind of unlocked a lot of those things that I was hiding in my life.

02:24So when I heard that Pete Hexeth wanted to remove his name from that ship, and not just remove it from the ship, but do it during Pride Month.

02:39The plan is to do it in about a week, according to Military.com.

02:44And it was intentional to do it during Pride Week.

02:49They have seen memos, according to Military.com, that they intended to do this during Pride Month.

02:56Just take that in for a second.

02:59During Pride Month, they wanted to make that statement.

03:02So, I got to say that there is something in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.

03:14There is something in the 14th Amendment about the right to equality.

03:19Whatever you think of DEI, this isn't DEI.

03:23It's not.

03:24This is just about equality.

03:26It doesn't mean that I ever got a job because I was gay, because I didn't.

03:32It doesn't mean Harvey Milk got it.

03:34In fact, I think Harvey Milk got a job in spite of being gay.

03:38So, the idea that this veteran, this Navy man who served in South Korea, is being taken off this ship.

03:49And the reasoning behind it is that Hegsaf wants to get back to a wartime culture.

03:57It suggests now that gay people are not fit to serve in the military, because that's the only takeaway I have here.

04:05It is the only takeaway that gay people aren't fit to serve.

04:10If you're saying getting back to a wartime culture.

04:12So, I guess the next thing is banning gays from the military, and that somehow gays are not capable of becoming part of a wartime culture.

04:24This is nothing but despicable and homophobic.

04:29You cannot argue this is not a homophobic move.

04:34Hegsaf, this is homophobic, and if Donald Trump is signing off, it is homophobic.

04:39You cannot get around that.

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