Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to rename a ship named after slain gay-rights advocate Harvey Milk.
The USNS Harvey Milk, which replenishes fuel for other ships in the fleet, was launched on Nov. 6, 2021.
But Mr. Hegseth ordered Secretary of the Navy John Phelan to have the ship renamed, according to a memorandum seen by Military.com and reported Tuesday. The renaming was supposed to be made public on June 13. The memo does not specify a new name for the ship.
Milk became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the U.S. when he won a 1977 race for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He was assassinated by fellow supervisor Dan White in November 1978.
The change was intentionally scheduled for June, which is Pride month for the LGBTQ community. The ship is being renamed as part of “alignment with president and SECDEF objectives and SECNAV priorities of reestablishing the warrior culture,” the memo read in part, according to Military.com, referring to the two secretaries and President Trump.
In a statement responding to the Tuesday afternoon reports, a Pentagon spokesman did not deny the stories, saying only that nothing had been announced.
“Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos. Any potential renaming(s) will be announced after internal reviews are complete,” spokesman Sean Parnell said.
Milk served in the Navy as a diving officer aboard the rescue submarine USS Kittiwake during the Korean War, according to the U.S. Naval Institute. He resigned his position in 1955 after facing questions about his sexuality, according to his official biography on the Harvey Milk Foundation website.
He was wearing his Navy diver’s belt buckle at the time of his assassination, according to USNI. The class of oiler ships were all named for civil rights leaders, per a 2016 instruction from Navy Secretary Ray Mabus in 2016 under former President Obama.
According to CBS News, the military is considering renaming the Milk’s sister ships, including vessels named after Underground Railroad leader Harriet Tubman, suffragist Lucy Stone, civil rights activist Medgar Evers, U.S. Supreme Court Justices Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Hispanic labor activists Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.
Some of the above ships have yet to be finished, according to Military.com. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat representing San Francisco, told CBS News that renaming “the USNS Harvey Milk and other ships in the John Lewis-class is a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream.”
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.