Brody's Notes... Dustin Lance Black Delivers Speech On Milk Legacy

Dustin Lance Black  Photo By Getty Images

By Brody Levesque (Bethesda, Maryland) May 23 | In a short six minute informal speech delivered to a gathering sponsored by Equality California yesterday, Academy Award winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, honoured the observance of California's inaugural Harvey Milk Day, in celebration of what would have been the slain LGBT Equality Rights activist's 80th birthday.

Speaking to the group of volunteers who spent the day canvassing for marriage equality in East Los Angeles neighborhoods, Black told the volunteers, that during his testimony last year in front of the California State Senate committee hearing on creation of the holiday to honour Milk, he had explained to the Senators that the number one lesson he had learned as he grew up attending a Salinas, California High School, was that being Gay meant being "less than," and as he looked upon the faces of the conservative Republicans on that committee, he emphasized that learning about Milk took a turn of luck to realise that there was a 'forefather' who'd inspire him that it was okay to be Gay. Black noted that the legacy now would be told to countless LGBT California students because of the creation of the day to honour Milk and that it would have a profound impact on those future generations of LGBT youth.