"Finding a Way to Win Gay in an Evolving Historical Movement: How Harvey Milk’s Rhetoric Led Him to San Francisco City Supervisor"

Responding to New Political Enemies with the Theme of Hope: 1977

1977 was “among the most consequential years in GLBTQ history to date” (Black and Morris 23). With nineteen states freed from criminalized sexuality, the nation entered a wider rhetorical conversation, and Milk became a part of it. During 1977, much of Milk’s rhetoric was in response to Anita Bryant and California Senator John Briggs. Bryant and Briggs would do anything to prevent LGBTQ rights, so they became clear political enemies whom Milk aimed his rhetoric toward.

In 1977, Bryant founded Save our Children in opposition to gay rights. Focusing on the idea that homosexuals were threatening to children, Bryant backed up her argument with the idea that since gay people could not have biological children of their own, they were after her children. “By focusing on the idea that gays and lesbians were somehow threatening to children, Bryant had created an incredibly powerful rhetorical focus for social conservatives” (Miller). Milk became invested in this conversation with Bryant and altered his own rhetoric in response to hers.

Bryant got her wish to repeal gay rights in Florida. On June 7, 1977, in Dade County, Florida, constituents voted to repeal the County’s only recently passed gay rights law that prohibited discrimination against LGBTQ members. Bryant was not content. The repeal of the gay rights legislation made it onto the nightly news and into magazines and newspapers across the country, inviting a lot of backlash to the repeal, including from Milk. While he was watching all of this happen from San Francisco, Milk urged a crowd to march downtown. Calling the protest “Orange Tuesday,” Milk and other protesters chanted through a bullhorn at Union Square. Though Milk and his followers had attempted to end the debate by demanding that gay people be given the rights they deserved, the battle continued into the San Francisco pride march later that month.

The day after “Orange Tuesday”, Senator Briggs called for the removal of all homosexual teachers from schools. “The Briggs Initiative,” otherwise known as California Proposition 6, continued into 1978. Like Bryant, Senator Briggs saw all homosexuals as pedophiles who had the sole intent of abducting children. Having been a teacher himself, Milk took the proposition personally.

According to Herrick, “The audience ‘will determine to a great extent both the direction the arguments will take, and the character, the significance that will attribute to them.’ Thus, the audience’s role in testing ideas is as important as the rhetor’s” (217). Bryant and Briggs tested Milk’s own stance on gay rights, allowing Milk to enter a much larger rhetorical conversation. With Bryant's platform, Milk was able to respond to the whole country. For this reason, “Anita made the gay rights movement a national story. She put the move in the gay rights movement. . . . She was the best thing that happened to the gay community” (Holeman). Without Bryant’s platform, Milk would not have reached as wide of an audience as he did. Staying true to his own motivations to gain complete equality and freedom for homosexuals, Milk did not get distracted by the large rhetorical conversation he chose to enter, and instead he used their counterarguments to his advantage.

During his 1977 campaign, Milk “inspired kids from small towns everywhere where the closet needed to be opened to hold onto ‘hope’—this became Milk’s mantra” (Black and Morris 145). His theme of hope, which continued throughout his campaign, was introduced in his speech “You’ve Got to Have Hope”, which became Milk’s rhetorical signature. On June 24, Milk delivered the speech at the San Francisco Gay Community Center, which the current City Supervisor had wanted to tear down and turn into a parking garage. Milk carefully chose this location because of its context in the gay community. If the speech were not delivered on the steps of this center, it would not have been as effective. A well thought out location has the power to influence an audience. Seeing Milk fight for gay rights in front of the Gay Community Center showed how important his political stance was to him. The rhetoric behind his chosen location resonated with his audience, and “You’ve Got to Have Hope” is still seen today as his most famous speech.

In 1977, Milk’s coalitional message further evolved. In 1973, he strove for a union between all members of the LGBTQ community, hoping that their vote alone would bring him to victory. After realizing that this was not enough votes for him to win, he sought to make an alliance with the straight community and the police force. Once again, this proved to fail. However, in 1977, Milk brought together all the minority groups of San Francisco to form his threat of “US against THEM.” In “You’ve Got to Have Hope,” he says, “It’s no longer the Seniors, the unemployed, the Asian community, the Gay, the Blacks, the Latins and so forth. They’re all US. It’s US against THEM” (150). Realizing that each of these groups uniquely contributed to San Francisco, he suggested they all work together with the aim of turning San Francisco into a place of equality for all. Being a part of the minority his whole life, Milk finally found the groups that believed in him.

Milk identifies with the individual experiences of his audience and looks at his speech from their perspective. Herrick argues that rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke found “Identification to be pervasive in human experience. ‘Identification,’ he writes, ‘ranged from the politician who, addressing the audience of farmers, says, ‘I was a farm boy myself’” (241). Far from being a farmer, Milk used his own identification to connect with the audience. He said, “I’ll never forget what it was like coming out. I’ll never forget the looks on the faces of those who have lost hope” (154). Knowing exactly the experiences and hardships his homosexual audience had been through, Milk was able to revise his rhetoric to better fit his audience.

With the intent of moving his audience’s emotions, Milk tells his crowd, “I stand here before you tonight because I’m proud of you” (Milk “You’ve Got to Have Hope” 154). Saying “I’m proud of you” is most likely something his audience was not used to hearing. Being gay in a time where gay people were not accepted was difficult, and often it led to being disowned by family members. Milk took on a parental status when he expressed how proud he was of his audience. Unlike other anti-gay activists, and citizens of the 1970s, Milk did not see his gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender audience as mentally ill or as pedophiles. He wanted to let his audience know that they were good enough, regardless of age, sex, gender, race, or sexual orientation. Milk assured his audience they were all worthy of life, love, and equality. Milk had the desire that this concept would one day be granted to all, which evoked emotion and hope from his audience.

The use of pathos was a strategy Milk kept in his back pocket throughout his 1977 campaign. He argued the following:

It’s the THEMS who benefit when the Gays and the Blacks and the Latins fight amongst themselves. It’s the THEMS who want to tear down the homes and community centers of the USes for their special pet projects. It’s the THEMS who divide – and conquer. It's the THEMS who are the real outside agitators in our communities. And they’ve been here for years. (150)

The “thems” (the straight white men who ran politics) were something minorities could all understand. Mentioning exactly what the “thems” were for—which was what Milk, and his LGBTQ followers, were against—aroused anger in the audience, fueled by flaws in the system. Milk personally altered the emotions of his audience to his advantage. (150)

Milk also continued to use pronouns such as “we,” “us,” and “you” to have a deeper, more personal conversation with his audience. Saying phrases like “It is not my election, it is yours,” (Milk “You’ve Got to Have Hope” 155) and “We in the gay community” (Milk “A Nation Finally Talks” 140) further proves his intention to establish a personal relationship between himself and his audience. Also, by using “we,” he showed the audience he, too, was affected by the current system. Milk was invested in the politics of location, mentioning street names and their particular local problems. Since he understood and could name the neighborhoods, it was evident Milk was an active member of the community. This further showed how much Milk was personally affected by the same issues as his audience.

Since he knew San Francisco like the back of his hand, Milk was the only candidate who spoke out on the smaller, but still serious, personal issues that San Franciscans cared about the most. These “small” issues were what the audience dealt with every day, and Milk’s goal was to look his audience in the eyes and promise to solve the problems that the current City Supervisor had refused to.

Unlike his 1973 and 1975 campaign, Milk realized that “Actions speak louder than campaign literature” ( “You’ve Got to Have Hope” 150). Instead of only mentioning what he wanted to accomplish as City Supervisor, he began to tell his audience how he would keep his promises to reach his goals. In “You’ve Got to Have Hope,” he puts himself in the audience’s shoes, saying, “Okay, Harvey, you say, enough of the rhetoric—what are you going to do?” (150). Milk realized that if he were a member of the audience, he would ask the same questions of the politician in front of him. San Francisco minority groups were used to false promises from City Supervisors, so Milk began to listen to his audience and respond to them accordingly. Thus, he began to tell his audience exactly how he would introduce gay rights, which was a tactic he lacked in his past two campaigns. He also asked the audience multiple rhetorical questions, then answered them as a method of showing his audience that he shared the same concerns.

Even with something so simple as helping to devise a law that ordered people to pick up their dog’s feces, Milk showed he was listening to what his audience wanted. In order to influence an audience, “you need to know what they look at, what is important to them, and what they are likely to accept into their universe of attention” (Bazerman 116). Seeing the people of San Francisco affected and annoyed by dog fecal matter left on public property, Milk took action and showed his audience that he had been listening to their needs all along. His new and improved rhetorical strategies were paying off. That year, Milk’s rhetoric helped his audience identify with him as a political candidate.

After three campaigns, Milk finally understood what a great rhetor was composed of, and it proved to be successful, because he finally reached his goal of San Francisco City Supervisor. In “You’ve Got to Have Hope,” Milk said that he believed his election would signal “A green light that says to all who feel lost and disenfranchised that you now can go forward—it means hope and we—no you and you and you and, yes, you got to give them hope” (155). If the city of San Francisco all worked together, they would be able to make a change in the city, the state, the country, and, then, the world.