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

Setting America up for an Inclusive Future through Deliberative Oratory and Identification: 1973

Milk strived to become the first openly gay person elected to the Board of Supervisors, but it certainly did not come easily to him due to his ineffective use of political rhetoric in his first two campaigns. Not having a political background, he went up against skilled orators who had prior knowledge in the public sphere. Milk’s first campaign came from his desire to help those did not have a voice represented in politics.

During his first campaign, Milk was influenced by the changing historical circumstances. On December 15, 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) voted to remove homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses. This new declaration was a step towards LGBTQ equality, and it drastically changed public opinion about being gay. The declaration states, “We will no longer insist on a label of sickness for individuals who insist that they are well and demonstrate no generalization impairment in social effectiveness” (qtd. in Kozuch). This gave Milk motivation and hope to campaign for City Supervisor.

Milk focused on the idea of changing the “mentality” of the privileged, or what he called the “Marie Antoinette Syndrome” (69). To him, this “mentality” stemmed from the white, upper-class men who ran politics. In “Address to the San Francisco Chapter of the National Women’s Political Caucus,” Milk stated:

The same people . . . the same mentality that is for spending money to tear down ugly freeways while there is a need for more childcare centers; the same mentality that is for building convention halls instead of developing the poverty areas – this mentality is setting priorities and tax rates for our City. (70)

By listing multiple things that the current City Supervisor cared about more than the people of San Francisco, Milk led his audience toward feeling a certain way — ultimately, angry. While attacking the “mentality” that had been running the city, Milk rhetorically presented himself as a victim affected by the same problems the current leadership created. He said “our city” to let his audience know that he was also affected by the political power prioritizing economics over people. Milk strategically used this rhetorical stance “to control and direct the attitude of a defined audience in a particular situation” (Herrick 109). Ultimately, his aim was to lead the audience towards anger at the current political power running the city, which he attempted by rhetorically identifying with his audience’s feelings of vexation.

Another rhetorical strategy Milk used was creating consubstantiality with his audience. Introduced by Kenneth Burke, consubstantiality refers to a commonality of substance, which is created by building identification—using commonality as a form of persuasion—through rhetorical practices. Consubstantiality leads to a “healing from the wound of our separation” (Herrick 241). Milk implements this idea when he discusses the current City Supervisor spending the City’s budget on personal transportation and refusing to ride the public trolly. As a future Supervisor, Milk encouraged public transportation, and he thought it was wrong to spend the City’s budget on something so unnecessary. This proved his similarity to his audience by sharing their everyday experience of public transportation, something that many people in politics refuse to use. By expressing this, he created consubstantiality with his audience as Burke discussed. While Milk was identifying as a City Supervisor in his campaign, he made his audience aware that his ideas for San Francisco were unique and different from the current City Supervisor; ideas like the conversation Milk entered regarding public transportation. Unlike the current leadership, Milk did not see the importance of personal transportation when the budget could be spent on more important ways to better San Francisco, such as building child-care shelters and developing poverty areas (70). By voicing this, he was rhetorically removing separation from his audience and proving commonality.

In his first campaign, Milk looked toward deliberative oratory for guidance and focused only on the future. The current leaders were only concerned about the present, which Milk thought was a horrible tactic. He said, “A City can concern itself about the clogged sewers of today and worry about tomorrow when tomorrow and tomorrow’s problems come; or it can prepare itself for tomorrow” (70). Strongly believing that the past City Supervisors had handed their mistakes to future generations, Milk aimed to focus on the future so the next City Supervisor would not have to deal with the messy mistakes of the past. Milk’s future mindset was a hopeful one, and it turned into his campaign mantra.

Like an ideal orator, Milk did “attend to what real audiences believe and value” by referring to the Constitution (Herrick 217). Mentioning that the Founding Fathers set America up for the future by making the Constitution, Milk suggested that he hoped to accomplish something similar as City Supervisor. Instead of focusing on current America, he, like the Founding Fathers, was concerned with setting America up for eternity. Mentioning the Founding Fathers and the Constitution must have spiked interest in his audience. Milk was aware that his audience already knew what the Constitution entailed, and instead of listing all the details of the document, he must have thought, “I don’t have to tell this particular audience.” Milk knew his audience’s prior knowledge, and he chose to adapt his speech accordingly.

Milk also appealed to his audience’s values by mentioning religion. In his “Address to the Joint International Longshoremen & Warehousemen’s Union of San Francisco and to the Lafayette Club,” he stated the following:

Let them teach the Commandment: Thou Shall Not Kill. I know of no Commandment that says: Thou Shall Not Read Dirty Books. I know of no Commandment that says: Thou Shall Not Walk Around Naked. Why are they such moralists when it comes to man-made Commandments and such anti-moralists when it comes to God’s Commandments? (74)

By bringing the Commandments into his speech, Milk brought the serious issues his platform was built upon to the surface, while also appealing to the religious interests of his audience. Without any knowledge of Milk’s aim to repeal all victimless crime laws, these topics might seem silly for a political candidate to address. In the 1970s, San Francisco was a city where victimless crimes such as prostitution and drug use were prohibited. Milk sought to decriminalize these laws he saw more harm in than good, and to focus on bigger things. He believed taxes should “go for my protection and not for my prosecution” (74). Instead of spending money on victimless crimes, Milk believed it should be spent on more important things that San Francisco would benefit from. Milk was concerned with these real issues that floated around San Francisco and thought every person, including sex workers, should be treated the same.

Throughout his 1973 campaign, Milk listed things he wanted to accomplish as City Supervisor. He fought for “making a city an exciting place for all to live: not just an exciting place for a few to live! A place for the individual and individual rights” (72). Like many other rhetors in politics, Milk spoke directly to his audience, using words like “you,” “we,” “our,” and “us,” thereby showing he listened to what San Franciscans personally wanted. Although he did showcase the use of rhetorical skills, it was not enough. Not only did his audience want to hear about the future, they wanted the problems of today to be addressed, such as the inclusion of all members of the gay community into a society where they were not being accepted.

Milk’s political rhetoric failed. He did not succeed in going beyond telling his audience what he wanted to accomplish as City Supervisor, and he failed to mention exactly how he would fulfill the promises he was making. Overall, his 1973 campaign was the roughest of his three attempts to be elected as City Supervisor, and it was due to Milk’s lack of having a specific action plan. Though he did attempt rhetorical strategies such as deliberative oratory, collective pronouns, consubstantiality, and appealing to his audience’s values, it was not enough to convince the people of San Francisco that 1973 should be the first year a proudly gay man should become City Supervisor. While Milk did identify with his audience, attempting to prove that he was no different than his followers, he failed in going beyond their similarities as citizens of San Francisco, and he failed to show his audience why he deserved to hold political power above the other candidates. For his first campaign, with no political background, Milk was sad to lose, but he was impressed that he finished tenth out of thirty-two candidates. For him, this was enough to run for City Supervisor again in 1975 with new rhetorical strategies.

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