The USNS Harvey Milk

July 29, 2016 2:08 PM

The US Navy will name a new ship for assassinated San Francisco Supervisor, LGBT and civil rights leader, and Navy veteran Harvey Milk.

Supervisor Scott Wiener who currently holds Milk's seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and who authored a resolution calling for the naming, released a statement praising the decision.

Other names in the class include former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren whose court ruled to desegregate U.S. schools, former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, women’s right activist Lucy Stone and abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth.

posted by Clinging to the Wreckage (33 comments total)

This is neat.

I was a bit slow at connecting the dots between a city-government resolution and a U.S. Navy decision, and credit where due: the bridge was then-U.S. Rep. Bob Filner ...who made the push four years ago, before subsequently becoming (and then unbecoming) mayor of San Diego.
posted by psoas at 2:28 PM on July 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Whoa.

Also... anti-eponysterical I hope.
posted by ardgedee at 2:36 PM on July 29, 2016 [13 favorites]

That's one way to convince right-wingers to reduce the defense budget.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:37 PM on July 29, 2016 [14 favorites]

*Buys champagne to donate while visualizing fireworks and a huge DNC style balloon drop*
posted by bearwife at 2:46 PM on July 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Fabulous!
posted by jeff-o-matic at 2:51 PM on July 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

The first of that class of ships (and therefore the whole line's namesake), incidentally, is the USNS John Lewis. Yeah. That one.
posted by Etrigan at 2:53 PM on July 29, 2016 [16 favorites]

I'm waiting for the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Bill Clinton, myself.
posted by Captain l'escalier at 2:54 PM on July 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Times they are a-changin'
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 2:55 PM on July 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Wiener generally lives up to his name, but this is great and it's great to see this ship in such great company.
posted by smirkette at 3:13 PM on July 29, 2016

What they look like. Big ass boats.
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:15 PM on July 29, 2016

I'm waiting for the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Bill Clinton, myself.

Me, the USS Hillary Clinton.
posted by bonehead at 3:27 PM on July 29, 2016 [12 favorites]

Ain't I a fleet replenishment oiler?

A good set of names all around. I have conflicting feelings about our military, but it's a start to have people thinking about justice instead of about violence when they hear those names.
posted by Sequence at 3:36 PM on July 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

Me, the USS Hillary Clinton.

Bill gets to swing the champagne bottle at the christening, fulfilling his role as first spouse.
posted by nathan_teske at 3:40 PM on July 29, 2016 [8 favorites]

That's one way to convince right-wingers to reduce the defense budget.

That's closer to the truth than you might realize.
posted by TedW at 4:21 PM on July 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm waiting for the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Bill Clinton, myself.

Perhaps a nuclear submarine would be more appropriate, no?
posted by me & my monkey at 5:02 PM on July 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

That's closer to the truth than you might realize.

I mean, in the abstract, I can get behind not naming ships after current members of Congress, because that gets way too much into "stroke the egos of the people who are supposed to be overseeing us" territory. But the fact that John Lewis of all people is where someone has chosen to draw that particular line is a problem.
posted by zachlipton at 6:07 PM on July 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

They want you, they want you
They want you as a new recruit

I couldn't resist even though this is really cool...
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 6:36 PM on July 29, 2016

don't make a seamen joke don't make a seamen joke don't make a seamen joke
posted by leotrotsky at 6:37 PM on July 29, 2016 [5 favorites]

I saw this today and pressed my hand to my chest and went, "awww!" And when my coworker asked me what I was looking at and I explained, she got this odd look on her face and started laughing and said, "My first guess was that your cats sent you a selfie."
posted by you're a kitty! at 6:52 PM on July 29, 2016 [6 favorites]

In the '90s, Congress and the Navy bent the unwritten rules to name a carrier after the then still-living Ronald Reagan. The next carrier laid down was the George H.W. Bush. OK, we've started a trend of naming carriers after living presidents. Logically, which name would you think have come up next? Nope, the Navy leapfrogged back in time and now has has an entire carrier class named after Gerald Ford, who served less than three years in the office. Why should Ford the obscure have a carrier, a literal flagship, named after him while the names of Democrats get palmed off onto unglamorous oilers and invisible submarines? This is a decades-long running partisan snub, part and parcel of the Republican habit of treating Democratic presidents as fundamentally illegitimate. It's infuriating in the grandiosity of its pettiness, and it's high time for it to end. There will most likely be a USS George W Bush before a carrier is named after either of the Clintons.
posted by Captain l'escalier at 7:05 PM on July 29, 2016 [6 favorites]

Why should Ford the obscure have a carrier, a literal flagship, named after him while the names of Democrats get palmed off onto unglamorous oilers and invisible submarines?

He fell down a lot?
posted by octobersurprise at 7:12 PM on July 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

When Tim Kaine mentioned Milk's name in his speech at the DNC, I nearly jumped out of my seat with excitement. And now this! I never thought our society would come so far in my lifetime. I'm still a crusty old pessimist about some things, but the world's continuing capacity to pleasantly surprise me keeps me going.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:08 PM on July 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Why should Ford the obscure have a carrier, a literal flagship, named after him while the names of Democrats get palmed off onto unglamorous oilers and invisible submarines?

Naval service during WW2 for Ford. Ditto GHWB. And Reagan volunteered for the army before Pearl Harbor, and had limited service because of his eyesight. (Plus he was in a movie about the navy. (Yes, I am joking.))

As to submarines - if we're talking Jimmy Carter, I expect it was because in recognition of his tenure in the frankly highly selective and demanding nuclear branch of service. Under Rickover. Not small beer, certainly not a swipe.

Clinton has no navy connection or military record. Plus he's living. Hard to make a case for him.

(Which Democrats are palmed off with oilers? I found a few B list names for cargo ships in general, but not real A listers.)
posted by IndigoJones at 8:09 PM on July 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

They want you, they want you
They want you as a new recruit,

I couldn't resist even though this is really cool...

One of Harvey Milk's signature lines was "My name is Harvey Milk and I'm here to recruit you," so this actually works perfectly.
posted by zachlipton at 8:16 PM on July 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

IndigoJones: "Which Democrats are palmed off with oilers? I found a few B list names for cargo ships in general, but not real A listers."

Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy? I'm not sure where he falls on the A to B list spectrum but I've heard of him in Canada though that might be a Kennedy Halo effect.
posted by Mitheral at 8:22 PM on July 29, 2016

The point is that the GOP, in their lust to inscribe Reagan's name on everything, opened a can of partisan worms (kind of a running theme with them). Reagan was a living two-term former president with no military experience when the ship was named after him-exactly the same situation Bill Clinton is in now. If they named a ship after Reagan, it's pretty clear the other two were not named after George Bush and Gerald Ford because of their service records, but because they were President. To refuse to name an aircraft carrier after Bill Clinton after naming three flat tops in a row after GOP presidents is pretty conspicuously disrespectful to the Democratic Party and Bill Clinton in particular. (I spent a lot of time on Marine and Navy bases as a kid in the early '90s, and I always felt that he received a lot of the blame from the military for base closures and the post-Cold War drawdown, besides the mere sin of being a Democrat-Reagan gave them a lot of toys and money to play with in the '80s, and now that draft-dodging pussy Clinton was taking it away from them.) That the USS Carter is a lesser ship, despite his actually having been a naval officer, merely serves as confirmation of the ongoing policy of insult by omission. I've always gotten a real Frank Luntz vibe off of this sort of thing, just at the edge of audibility-that the biggest, most prominent ships in the fleet can under no circumstances be named after a living Democrat.
posted by Captain l'escalier at 8:39 PM on July 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

That the USS Carter is a lesser ship, despite his actually having been a naval officer, merely serves as confirmation of the ongoing policy of insult by omission.

I get what you are saying, and I don't entirely disagree.

On the other hand, Jimmy Carter qualified as a submarine officer, was an XO on a diesel/electric boat, worked on the earliest nuclear subs.

A submarine seems pretty appropriate, though I think he should have gotten his own class.
posted by madajb at 9:15 PM on July 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

RE: Carter. That's like saying JFK should only get patrol boats named after him. Interestingly, they're now building (or are scheduled to build) a second flattop named after him. If having an aircraft carrier named after you is, as it has appeared to have become, a perk of presidency, there can be no reason except partisanship for the absence of a USS Clinton.
posted by Captain l'escalier at 9:28 PM on July 29, 2016

Amazing!
posted by persona au gratin at 11:43 PM on July 29, 2016

Where's Nixon's ship?
posted by zippy at 12:45 AM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Nixon's ship sank into a pit of alcohol-fueled depression.

Anyway, glad to see the US Navy continuing to lean forward, despite the best efforts of Republicans to tie their hands on many issues such as climate change/energy security.

Although if you look at the Navy's long traditions maybe they should have had pride floats decades ago.

Veterans United Line Crossing Ceremony Revealed
posted by C.A.S. at 8:46 AM on July 30, 2016

Reagan was a living two-term former president with no military experience

Ahem.

(Trivia: every president from Eisenhower to GHWBush had served in the military in some capacity, including the Reserves and the Service Academies, during WWII.)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:10 PM on August 1, 2016

(Trivia: every president from Eisenhower to GHWBush had served in the military in some capacity, including the Reserves and the Service Academies, during WWII.)

Only three major-ticket Presidential nominees were alive during WWII and did not serve. All were too young, and all three lost (Mondale, Dukakis, McCain).
posted by Etrigan at 1:15 PM on August 1, 2016