Sean Penn wants Harvey Milk’s b-day to be California holiday

milk1
Sean Penn is getting political. Shocking, right? After last week’s Oscar win for Best Actor in Milk, Sean is using his star power to petition California governor Arnold Sschwarzenegger to recognize Harvey Milk’s birthday as a state holiday. Apparently, Milk’s birthday is already recognized in San Francisco, but Penn wants a state-wide holiday. Then probably a nation-wide holiday, then the world! But Penn has some support within the California legislature. OK! Magazine has more:

Now that he’s won Best Actor for his portrayal of the late gay activist Harvey Milk, Sean Penn is using his Hollywood muscle to make sure people never forget his message.

Penn is reportedly pushing the state of California to officially recognize Harvey Milk’s birthday. State Senator Mark Leno plans to reintroduce a bill on Tuesday with Penn by his side, designating Milk’s birthday as a “day of significance.”

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the same bill last year. In his veto message, the governor said Milk should be honored in San Francisco, but not statewide.

Leno says Penn’s award shows that Schwarzenegger’s argument about Milk being only of provincial interest no longer holds up.

From OK! Magazine

Harvey Milk’s birthday should be a California holiday, but I’m not so sure about taking it nation-wide. California should be proud of Harvey Milk; he was, after all, the first openly gay office-holder in America. I hope the governor (The Governator) approves – I bet he will, because Arnold needs some good press from the gay community.

Even though that was thirty years ago, today there are only a handful of openly gay office-holders. Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts is one, the mayor of Portland (his name is actually Sam Adams) is another. But the Portland mayor is engaged in some kind of seedy underage sex scandal, so the gay community probably doesn’t want to be associated with him.

milk2

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

8 Responses to “Sean Penn wants Harvey Milk’s b-day to be California holiday”

Comments are Closed

We close comments on older posts to fight comment spam.

  1. Tia says:

    WONDERUL IDEA.. LOVE SEAN PENN !!!! Harvey Milk is a hero, and should be respected as such. I think it is a brilliant idea.

  2. geronimo says:

    Why not? Martin Luther King and César Chávez have official state holiday status for their human rights work, another one can’t hurt and Milk deserves recognition. Wish Sean Penn would butt out tho’, he’s too divisive.

    What exactly is a state holiday in the US, is it just like eg. a saint’s day here? I could look it up but I know the info I’ll get here will be much more reliable than some random google.

  3. Kaiser says:

    A state holiday doesn’t really mean much – people don’t get off work or anything, it’s just a holiday that would probably just be used to teach CA school kids about Harvey Milk.

  4. geronimo says:

    Thanks kaiser.

  5. Alexis says:

    i’m with kaiser.
    i live in CA, and recently, for i believe President’s Day or something, most people didn’t have to go to work and schools were closed, but not all colleges.

    it happens all the time. i’ve always thought that there is really no point in holidays like cesar chavez day or mlk jr day if kids/adults don’t know why they get the day off.

  6. Jane says:

    I think it should be a national holiday, not just a sate holiday. Harvey Milk was an activist and helped people from all parts of the country. It’s about damn time he got some recognition.

  7. Jane says:

    *State

  8. renee says:

    Right on Jane-I agree!