Today’s California’s first observed Harvey Milk Day. Actions and celebrations are stockpiled here by EQCA and here on the Harvey Milk Day web page. Here’s the Milk Foundation’s site, which includes a great page on Harvey In Schools.  Our school district will be adapting HRC’s Welcoming Schools curriculum next year, as policy district-wide (first such district in the nation, thankyouverymuch!), and I reckon we’ll be working with this material plenty.  I look forward to reporting on it.
Our family  didn’t go door-to-door today, which some did (see the EQCA page), or attend a celebration out and about. We did talk about Harvey Milk, though, and liken him as someone who is, to mama’s and baba’s people, what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X are to their Auntie Rachel’s people. (Both Martin and Malcolm are celebrated in our school district; this past Monday was a school holiday for Brother Malcolm).  The word martyr is an important one, but one we haven’t broached yet. We have Kari Krackow’s kid’s book The Harvey Milk Story,  but stopped short of reading it this year.  The assassination is on the third to the last page; no graphic images but the following:
On a gray November morning, Dan White crawled through a basement window at the back of City Hall with a loaded gun.
Dan White entered the mayor’s office and, after a brief argument took place, shot Mayor George Moscone. Â Reloading his gun, he hurried down the hall to Harvey Milk’s office. Five shots rang out.
Both Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk were killed.
Gitcher handy-dandy CA progressive voter guide here
“Here” being actually “over there,” there being Courage Campaign. Image takes you to Courage Campaign’s page, their PDF link direct to you here.
The PDF download lists who’s for and against the various California propositions on the ballot, and includes a brief synopsis along with Courage Campaign’s recommendations. John in Sacramento, at Firedog Lake, has a different take on one of the propositions, which you can read about here.
Whilst I was burnt to a crisp over our last opportunity to jigger the state’s politico-socio-economic landscape with the faux-populist proposition, I, along with many dutiful folks in the various states holding elections today, will drag my arse to the polls and vote all the same. Since a few local issues and party primaries are buried in and amongst the ballot measures in my state.
For those of you interested in Equality California’s candidate recommendations (both LGBT and pro-LGBT candidates), here’s their voter guide for Northern and Southern California. The endorsed candidates of the EQCA PAC are all listed (and detailed) here.
Elsewhere, I’m happy to pass on, “Other Issues Crowd Out Gay Marriage.”
If you’re in a state with elections today and forgot your polling place, find it here at Vote411.org.
[And if  you'll permit a brief an extended non-electoral editorial aside: please accept my apologies for light posting this past week, mebbe coming up week, too. We had a no-show Weekend bonus shot this past weekend, which I never like to see, and still consider a sad sign of overwhelm of one degree or another. I got some really great stuff in the hopper, but it's having to stay there longer than I like, due to lotsa work at Casa LD. Lotsa work meaning that unpaid time such as what's clocked here gets sucked up into the dryer/behind the couch cushions/name yer favorite ne'er to be returned from vortex. Similar vortex that sucked up my Blogging for LGBT Families Day post, and my ability to re-conjure both the spirit and the time.  Damn vortex. I have high hopes for the coming months, though, which include some significant family firsts, not least of which is preschool for the boychild, also known as GUARANTEED CHILDCARE TIME FOR THE BABA.  As me Pops is fond of saying, "The future lies ahead."]