THE ADVOCATE -- Gay rights icon Harvey Milk was memorialized in the January 11, 1979, issue of The Advocate. This is a portion of his obituary.
Milk — along with San Francisco State University speech instructor Sally Gearheart — debated John Briggs on television. He went to Chicago to campaign for a gay candidate running for a seat in the Illinois House of Representatives.
But Milk also realized that a gay public official had to deal with a whole range of issues. In doing so, he felt he could help straight citizens learn to trust and respect gay people. Noted Milk, “I’m showing people here that the gays are involved with taxes, and dog shit, and Muni, and everything else. So that when people say ‘Hey, you know it doesn’t matter if a person is green with six heads.’”