"Milk"

Milk is worth seeing. Sean Penn, who you may love or hate, is such an amazing actor. I've never really researched the legacy of Harvey Milk, but it is a story of courage and strength, and of a man who was unapologetic in who he was.

I was speaking with a fellow Democrat the other day about how it is good to be a member of a party that doesn't eliminate roughly ten percent of the population from its ranks (if you believe Kinsey) simply due to the way they are wired in sexual orientation. It is the party of Gerry Studds and Barney Frank, of homosexuals who were accepted and allowed to contribute to society because their sexual orientation wasn't the most important piece of their being.

But American society always gets its titillation from the Republicans getting caught in trysts because it is such a cornerstone of their affiliation that they are the pillars of society, paragons of virtue. I feel sorry for the Larry Craigs of the world, who have to resort to finding their satisfaction in airport bathrooms because admission of their true being is anathema to their political parties.

Back to the beauty of "Milk": seeing a young Tom Brokaw interviewing Anita Bryant (even as a ten-year-old boy growing up in Weld, Maine, I knew she was so evil that I had to boycott orange juice for a while), and news breaks with Walter Cronkite. This is a great movie, and I am happy to have a better understanding of Harvey Milk's place in American politics.