Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the removal of gay rights activist Harvey Milk’s name from a U.S. Navy oiler ship.
A defense official told Military.com that the timing of the order from Hegseth, announced during what many in the LGBTQ community consider Pride Month (June), was intentional.
According to a memo from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, the ship will be renamed to better align with “President and SECDEF objectives and SECNV priorities of reestablishing the warrior culture,” evidently referring to President Donald Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of the Navy John Phelan.
The rules for naming U.S. Navy vessels vary according to the type of ship, but there are occasional exceptions to the rules. The final decision on naming a U.S. Navy ship rests with the Secretary of the Navy, Business Insider reported. However, the order to rename the ship came from Hegseth, according to Military.com.
John Lewis-class oilers, including the USNS Harvey Milk, are intended to be named after civil rights leaders. The first oiler ship of this class was named after civil rights leader and U.S. Rep. John Lewis. It was christened on July 17, 2021, one year to the day after the congressman’s death. The second in this class of replenishment oilers, the USNS Harvey Milk, was christened nearly four months later, on November 6, 2021.
Harvey Milk served in the Navy for four years during the Korean War before being forced to resign in 1955, in an era in which gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members were banned. He chose to accept an “other than honorable discharge” as an alternative to being court-martialed because of his homosexuality, The Washington Post reported in 2019.
Milk later became the first openly gay candidate elected to public office in California, establishing himself in the 1970s as a prominent local figure in the early fight for gay civil rights. He was assassinated at City Hall while serving as a member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors in November of 1978, after serving only 11 months on the Board.
By the time the Navy christened the USNS Harvey Milk in 2021, military officials under the Biden administration had taken a decidedly different stance on gays serving in the armed forces.
The then-Secretary of the Navy, Carlos Del Toro, said that it was important for him to attend the christening, “not just to amend the wrongs of the past, but to give inspiration to all of our LGBTQ community leaders who served in the Navy, in uniform today and in the civilian workforce as well too, and to tell them that we’re committed to them in the future.”
“For far too long, sailors like Lt. Milk were forced into the shadows or, worse yet, forced out of our beloved Navy,” Del Toro said. “That injustice is part of our Navy history, but so is the perseverance of all who continue to serve in the face of injustice.”
Del Toro also noted, “Ship names are important because they express what we value as a Navy and as a nation and communicate those values around the globe in every port of call.”
The recent order to rename the USNS Harvey Milk appears to be an expression of the values of the Trump administration. The decision was made to reflect the President’s “priorities, our nation’s history and the warrior ethos,” according to Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell.
His comment echoes that of Hegseth, who remarked in April that the administration’s objectives from day one has focused on “restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military and reestablishing deterrence. … We are leaving wokeness and weakness behind. And refocusing on lethality, meritocracy, accountability, standards and readiness.”
Names are important in the Trump administration, as the President has set about renaming other long-standing institutions to his liking: Denali has once again become Mt. McKinley, Fort Liberty is now Fort Bragg again, and the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America, according to a Presidential proclamation.
U.S. Naval ships honoring other prominent leaders are also under consideration for renaming, according to CBS News. Ships on the Navy’s recommended renaming list include the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, USNS Harriet Tubman, USNS Delores Huerta, USNS Lucy Stone, USNS Cesar Chavez, and USNS Medgar Evers.
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi told CBS News that the reported decision to rename these ships is “a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream.”
“Our military is the most powerful in the world – but this spiteful move does not strengthen our national security or the ‘warrior’ ethos. Instead, it is a surrender of a fundamental American value: to honor the legacy of those who worked to build a better country,” she added.
The Navy has not yet announced a new name for the oiler ship USNS Harvey Milk.