Harvey Milk: “Every gay person must come out.”

Jodie Foster’s much-discussed speech at the Golden Globe Awards might have benefited by some of the explicitness shown in this address by HARVEY MILK, Member, Board of Supervisors, San Francisco; delivered in 1978, three weeks before Milk’s assasination.

“Every gay person must come out,” Milk said. “As difficult as it is, you must tell your immediate family. You must tell your relatives. You must tell your friends if indeed they are your friends. You must tell your neighbors. You must tell the people you work with. You must tell the people in the stores you shop in. And once they realize that we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and for all. And once you do, you will feel so much better.”