After the landmark Supreme Court rulings on Wednesday that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, celebrations burst out throughout the country, including crowds outside The Stonewall Inn in New York City’s West Village and outside San Francisco’s City Hall.
Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Milk,” and Harvey Milk’s nephew Stuart Milk joined msnbc’s The Last Word Wednesday evening to discuss the movement’s current momentum.
“It has been a long march and so many people have continued carrying my uncle’s banner,” said Stuart Milk. “San Francisco is just alive tonight with celebration and the message that we as a community are so much better when including everyone. This has been a turning point for not only the rights of LGBT people but it’s a green light to every community that’s marginalized and diminished that justice can move forward.”
Gay rights activist and community leader Harvey Milk made history after becoming, in 1977, one of the first openly gay officials elected to public office. Within a year of being elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, Milk was shot and killed.
Milk’s nephew, the president of the Harvey Milk Foundation, said the fight for equality is far from over.
“We have to have this commitment to take this to the next level. This is really the civil rights defining moment of our time but we have got a lot of work to do. The thing I am most proudest and I think my uncle would be so thrilled with is all the people who have taken my uncle’s mantle of being out, of being authentic and living a life that is challenging…in some conservative places to come out and be who you are. But that is really what is changing the dynamics not just in the United States but across the world.”
Clare Kim