A new report claims that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered the U.S. Navy to change the name of an oiler ship named after Harvey Milk, who was a gay rights activist.
Military.com was the first outlet to report the anticipated name change for the U.S. Navy’s ship after reviewing a memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy. An anonymous defense official told Military.com that the Navy was preparing to change the name of the USNS Harvey Milk and confirmed Navy Secretary John Phelan had received an order from Hegseth to change the ship’s name. The defense official added that the timing of the name change was intentional during Pride month, which is celebrated each year in June.
According to the memorandum obtained by Military.com, the USNS Harvey Milk’s name change is part of the “alignment with president and SECDEF objectives and SECNAV priorities of reestablishing the warrior culture.” The outlet noted that the memorandum indicated that the announcement of the Navy’s plan to change the name of the USNS Harvey Milk was expected to become public on June 13.
According to CBS News, the USNS Harvey Milk was named after the gay rights activist in August of 2016 at a ceremony in San Francisco under former President Barack Obama’s administration. The outlet noted that Milk was the first openly gay official to be elected to office in California prior to his assassination in 1978.
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The Harvey Milk Foundation’s website describes Milk as a “visionary civil and human rights leader who became one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States.” The website notes that Milk enlisted in the Navy in 1951 and resigned in 1955 after he was “officially questioned about his sexual orientation.”
In a statement to Fox News, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Sean Parnell did not directly address the report regarding the renaming of the USNS Harvey Milk; however, he suggested that the Pentagon could implement additional name changes in the future.
Parnell told Fox News, “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.” He added that “any potential renaming(s) will be announced after internal reviews are complete.”
According to documents obtained by CBS News, the Navy has a “recommended list” of other ship name changes, including the USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the USNS Thurgood Marshall, the USNS Lucy Stone, the USNS Harriet Tubman, the USNS Medgar Evers, the USNS Dolores Huerta, and the USNS Cesar Chavez.
