ST.PAUL, Minn. – Go Vernor Tim Walz marked June as Pride Month with a personal story. In the mid-1990s, when he was teaching at a Mankato high school, a group of students asked him to help start a new club — a gay-straight alliance. “They were concerned about anti-gay bullying and wanted to create a safe and supportive space for everyone,” Walz said. “My answer?Absolutely.” As a teacher, Walz said, it was his responsibility to ensure every student felt safe and free to be themselves. “We’ve come a long way since then,” Walz said but added a critical note — that President Trump and “his MAGA allies” are doing everything they can to turn back the clock. “We can’t let that happen,” the governor said.
Trump homophobia
U.S. Navy ship Harvey Milk. Operated by the Military Sealift Command to carry oil to other ships at sea. One of 20 such vessels in the new class of replenishment ships named for civil rights leader John Lewis.
To dampen Pride enthusiasm
President Trump has ordered the U.S: Navy to rename a ship that was launched in 2021 and named at the time for gay civil rights leader Harvey Milk. The announcement came from Trump’s defense secretary Pete Hegseth. Sources at the Defense Department confitmed the announcement was timed to insult gay people at the start Pride Month. Hegseth said that Milk’s name wasn’t sufficiently warrior-like. Milk, who was assassinated in 2016, was on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. He also had served the Navy.