Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced on Friday that the Navy renamed an oiler originally named after famed gay rights activist and veteran Harvey Milk to honor Chief Watertender Oscar Peterson instead.

The John Lewis-class replenishment oiler was named the USNS Harvey Milk at a ceremony in August 2016, but it will now be known as the USNS Oscar V. Peterson.

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“We are taking the politics out of ship naming,” Hegseth said in a video posted on social media. “We’re not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration. Instead, we’re renaming the ship after a United States Navy congressional Medal of Honor recipient.”

“People want to be proud of the ship they’re sailing in,” he added. “So we’re renaming it after a chief, a navy chief.”

Milk served in the Navy during the Korean War. Following his service, he became one of the first openly gay legislators in the country before ultimately being assassinated in 1978.

News of the renaming of the USNS Harvey Milk was reported earlier this month and sparked significant condemnation from Democrats.

In 2016, former Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced that he would name the Lewis-class oilers after prominent civil rights activists and leaders, including Milk, Lucy Stone, Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Harriet Tubman.

Hegeth did not specify whether these other vessels named after civil rights activists would be renamed as well.

Peterson was assigned to the USS Neosho, an oiler ship operating in the Pacific theater, which was heavily damaged by Japanese dive bombers during the Battle of the Coral Sea on March 7, 1942. Despite his wounds, he was able to close four bulkhead steam line valves to help keep the ship operational, though he suffered third-degree burns in the process.

He died from his wounds on May 13, 1942, and was buried at sea. Peterson was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor later that year.

The decision, which coincides with Pride Month, is the latest example of Hegseth’s efforts to dismantle the department’s diversity and inclusion efforts.

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Hegseth also renamed seven U.S. Army bases that had their names changed during the Biden administration due to the previous namesakes’ ties to the Confederacy. However, the Army found other soldiers with the same last names as the Confederate namesakes, so it could bring back the old names without directly bringing back the ties to those individuals.

Steve Warren, acting deputy chief of Army Public Affairs, said earlier this week that all of the name changes are now in effect, though some naming ceremonies have yet to occur. In some instances, the Army still had the “old, old signs” that bear the bases’ original and current names, which is “saving us some money as we go through the transformation,” he added.