I warned you this was coming in my last post. Now you’re stuck reading and are just going to have to deal with it!

This past Thursday night I went and saw Milk with my very good friend, Deborah. There are simply not enough superlatives to describe this movie, and I’m saying this as someone who generally doesn’t enjoy either biopics or “message movies,” even when the message is one I strongly agree with. Gus Van Sant, Sean Penn, James Franco, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, and all the other talented people involved in making this movie completely outdid themselves and took it right up to eleven…and they’re all pretty damned good to begin with. But I’m not writing to review the movie.

Now, having come out into both sexually- and gender-based queerness at UC Santa Cruz, Harvey Milk’s life and place in history was a subject with which I quickly became familiar. Since learning about him, I’d always found him to be an inspirational figure and had always tried to live by his motto, “Ya gotta give ‘em hope.” But seeing this amazing depiction of that life at this moment in time really moved me (and, really, the movie couldn’t have been better-timed if they’d planned it that way).

The question I found myself asking was, “Where’s the Harvey Milk of today?” (Or, perhaps, “Where’s the queer Barack Obama?”)

Milk got it when it came to advancing the cause of LGBT rights. He blended superhuman tenacity with maximum inclusiveness and outreach to achieve milestones considered impossible even by the queer political establishment of the time and ended up being quite possibly the most important sub-mayoral, city-level officeholder of all time without even holding that office for two full years before being gunned down along with then-mayor George Moscone by fellow supervisor Dan White.

He knew that, without building coalitions with other organizations and demographics, the LGBT cause would wither, relegated to backwater status in politics by a combination of our low numbers, religious objections to our very existence, and the “squick factor” that many hetero folks would never get over without someone queer in their lives to help them. With nothing but grit, savvy, and charm, he forged seemingly unlikely alliances with local unions, seniors, youth, and women’s groups to finally get himself elected (with, admittedly, some help from a redistricting of San Francisco’s Supervisorial Districts). He did everything he could to be an indispensable liaison between the then-warring factions of queers and city authorities. He also forcibly bridged the internecine prejudices in the LGBT scene of the day by bringing a lesbian woman into his boys’ club to be his campaign manager.

It would hardly be an overstatement to say that he almost singlehandedly birthed much of the LGBT political movement as we know it today out of disparate, even warring, component parts he knew had to get over it and work together if any real progress was ever going to be made at a time when the initial sallies of some more progressive local governments into starting to grant LGBT folks equal protection under the law were being wiped out by bigoted ballot initiatives and hateful celebrities like Anita Bryant. (The more that things change, eh?)

But what happened?

Well, the one-two punch of AIDS and the Reagan revolution set us more than two steps back, for starters. And, in their wake, a new/old kind of mainstream LGBT rights movement appeared…one dedicated to seeming as small, normative, and harmless as possible to get legal table-scraps while a lot of the more radical groups (your ACT-UPs and Queer Nations) were more fixated on AIDS awareness, simple visibility in a time when you couldn’t get the President to even talk about us, and the rather controversial strategy of outing or threatening to out public figures. And, in all fairness, that worked surprisingly well. With the hot-button exception of marriage, most LGBT (well, LGB anyway…”T” is another story for another time) protections have been accepted as civil rights every bit the equal of protections based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or sex.I’m not saying there haven’t been challenges or setbacks to other LGBT rights outside of marriage, though. Certainly, there have been attempts to strip away protections in employment, housing, and services, as well as in partner health care and insurance benefits, but they’ve been successfully defended in most cases.

Then, the focus all seemed to shift to marriage, starting in the ’90s when it looked like the State Supreme Court of Hawaii might actually rule to give same-sex couples the right to marry. Then Massachusetts, then California. Suddenly, the evangeloonies and culture warriors had a wedge issue to chisel away the support of some of the groups that would normally ally with LGBT folks on other rights. Now, in almost every state of the union and at the federal level, anti-same-sex-marriage laws (and, often, State Constitutional Amendments) have been passed, culminating in the shocking passage of Prop. 8 in California which rendered the election of Barack Obama and the massive new Democratic majorities in Congress bittersweet for the LGBT community.

So, what now? I think we need to get back to doing things the Harvey Milk way. I’ve already talked about the need for the LGBT community to engage in better outreach to other communities, going beyond just seeking allies in the organizations that represent those interests (no civil rights group I can think of was for Prop. 8 or any of the other horrible anti-LGBT ballot measures people have voted on in quite some time). But we also need to start “horse-trading” with other traditionally liberal movements and communities to get them on board with marriage rights and things like gender-identity protection laws by offering them something they want in return, just as Harvey Milk got the Teamsters on his side by initiating the long and successful queer boycott of Coors. which was repaid by securing the right for LGBTs to work openly without being allowed to lose their jobs just for being queer. Hell, there are still gay bars where you will simply not find any Coors product.

In addition, Milk advocated a radical stand on openness, and I think he was right. The more people know that they actually have LGBT family, friends, and loved ones, the harder a time they’re going to have voting against us in these hateful referenda. We all need to be out and open to everyone we know. No playing the “pronoun game,” no giving in to fears of losing people or jobs…or even life and limb. If we were all out of the closet, more people would have to confront their feelings and opinions about LGBTs with that nagging example there working to keep them from embracing xenophobia guilt-free. If they’re going to discriminate or be prejudiced against us, we have to make them do it to our faces. Yes, some of them — even many of them — will, but many if not most of them will end up in the right place, even if their initial, knee-jerk reaction doesn’t get them there. We need to be both fearless and patient.

Furthermore, I also think that we need to reverse the trend of voluntarily ghettoizing ourselves. Believe me, I understand the instinct to escape all the cultural backwaters and head to the greener pastures of the major metro areas and their queer and bohemian enclaves. I have no illusions that people won’t continue to do exactly that, or that it would actually be the right choice for many of them for a variety of reasons. I just hope that more people will choose to stay and serve as that example to their neighbors and tough out the initial reactions.

Finally, we need more LGBT representation in the halls of government. And, once again, Harvey gave us the blueprint. So, where are the Harvey Milks of today? Where are the charismatic leaders willing to go to City Hall, the legislatures, the Statehouses, the Congress, and even…dare we even hope?…the White House? I love Barney Frank despite his centrist politics, but it isn’t him. Sheila Kuehl? Again…love her to death, but no. Tom Ammiano really, really wants to be the new Harvey, and has managed to get into the CA State Assembly, but nope. I really wish New Jersey’s Jim McGreevey hadn’t resigned. A sitting, openly gay governor would be kinda nice. He has some potential, assuming he’s still interested in politics. I’d also love to see Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend make a run. She’s sassy, smart, and right on with all the issues.

I can certainly tell you that it’s not someone like HRC’s Joe Solomonese, after the HRC was so willing to through trans people under the bus to get a truncated version of ENDA passed that we all know would only have been vetoed by ol’ George W anyway.

It really makes me wonder if it’s going to take someone like Melissa Etheridge or Ellen Degeneres just up and deciding to change careers. But then, maybe I’m wrong about one of the existing local or state-level pols I’ve mentioned. And maybe there’s one out there I just don’t know about yet who isn’t local to me who has the right stuff. One can always hope. One must always hope.

I know that charismatic queer leader isn’t me. I walked out of that theater wondering what I can do to help when I have a hard enough time getting 5 people over to my house for a movie night. What with being semi-employed and trying to start up my own business, I don’t exactly have money to give, either. But I’m sure I’ll figure something out, and I’m always open to suggestions (hint: Comment, people!).

Now just ask yourself what you can do!