‘Harvey Milk Was a Patriot’: National Review Columnist Slams Pete Hegseth for ‘Petty and Prejudicial’ Renaming of Navy Ship
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
Veteran conservative political reporter and commentator John Fund tore into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for renaming the USNS Harvey Milk – deliberately stripping the Navy vessel of its name as a jab at the left during Pride Month. The ship was named after Milk, a prominent civil rights leader and the first openly gay elected official in California, in 2016.
Fund, National Review’s national-affairs reporter and former member of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, titled his piece, “Harvey Milk Was a Patriot,” and began his argument by detailing Milk’s long-held conservative, vehemently anti-Communist beliefs. Fund explains how Milk campaigned for Barry Goldwater in 1964, and that after opening a small business in San Francisco in 1973, he led a “tax revolt” after a local bureaucrat tried to shake him down – which led to his entry into politics.
Fund writes that Milk had a “truly had a holistic view of freedom. He once said during a rally in San Francisco, ‘Let me have my tax money go for my protection and not for my prosecution. Let my tax money go for the protection of me. Protect my home, protect my streets, protect my car, protect my life, protect my property.’”
“I grew up just outside San Francisco and can remember attending a speech during which Milk spoke eloquently about how human rights begin on neighborhood streets,” Fund added.
Fund goes on to explain that Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977 and was assassinated in 1978. “One of the terminals at San Francisco International Airport is named after him. So too should the Navy ship continue to bear his name. Stripping the ship of the only name it has ever had would be a retrograde move and needlessly exacerbate divisions in the armed forces,” argues Fund.
Fund goes on to note that Hegseth’s move is at odds with Trump himself, who made Richard Grenell the first openly gay cabinet member in 2020 and Scott Bessent the first openly gay Treasury Secretary in the current administration.
“Allowing the Pentagon to make a petty and prejudicial move against the naming of a ship after Harvey Milk sullies that record and is no way to build esprit de corps in our military,” concluded Fund.
Hegseth has also stirred controversy in recent months by purging all military sites and archives of “DEI” related content, which ended up removing images of the World War II Hiroshima bomber Enola Gay — because “Gay” was in its name.
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