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American by birth, Californian by the grace of God!—I lived in the south for quite some time so I decided to adopt, modify, and, well, just overall approve it. Not only am I Californian by birth, but I have the fortune of being born and raised in San Diego.  Like many of you, until recently, I was confused about its greatness. 

We don’t have 90210 as a zip code (Dylan McKay forever!), nor are we cool enough to be the SF Bay area; heck for the most part we are a little red section of CA. (We did go blue in 2008 for Obama.)  We do get a shout on Pride Radio “From Halstead to Hillcrest” (Hillcrest 92103 is our gayborhood).

San Diego, however, just earned major cool points.

On Tuesday May 22, 2012 San Diego unveiled a new street sign that transformed a two-block roadway of Blaine Avenue into Harvey Milk Street.  The sign/street is to be belived to be the first in the country to honor Harvey Milk.  Thanks for sleeping San Francisco (San Diego is awake and caught the worm).  The street leads right to the San Diego LGBT Center.

Harvey Milk born Harvey Bernard Milk May 22, 1930 became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California when he won his bid for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in January 1978.  From my understanding he may be the 1^st openly gay man elected to public office.  For all intense and purposes he may be the 1^st openly gay man to run for office (he is of course the one we hear the most about, please correct me if I am wrong) .

Milk courageously fought against California Prop 6 (The Briggs’ Initiative). This initiative would have prevented gays, lesbians and possibly their supporters from working in California public schools.  We have come so far (but yet not far enough).  Milk however didn’t get to finish his work in San Francisco before he was shot while in office November 1978.  Milk’s martyrdom has canonized him as a force in LGBT politics forever. 

Although he ran for office in San Francisco he served in the Navy in San Diego (we are grabbing at reasons to claim him as ours and we got one)                  .

Thank you San Diego for making me proud!  Thank you San Diego, for putting us on the map (although we were on it for other reasons). Thank you San Diego, thank you. Thank you Harvey Milk.

“If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door in the country” – Harvey Milk (1930-1978)