Did you see Milk this weekend?

“My partner and I just returned from seeing it and it is a MUST SEE,” wrote Dee. “We did not buy from the consession stand, due to the ownership of the theater (Mormon) but would not have missed the first day of this film… I urge the community and our allies to see this movie. We’re thinking Academy Award for Penn.”

“The Prop 6 part was disturbing because it reminds me so much of Prop 8,” wrote Elias, “along with the other dozen ballot measure campaigns I’ve been in.”

I agree that Penn gave an excellent performance, and that the comparison between winning Prop 6 and barely losing Prop 8 is heart-wrenching.

Gay and lesbian history is so hidden that many young adults don’t know about the struggle for our rights. Milk opens with the police raiding a gay bar, beating the customers and dragging them off to jail, simply for being gay. The scene uses real video from the late 60’s and early 70’s. We’ve come a long way.

Then in 1978, the newly-elected Supervisors, representing minorities who had never been represented before, voted to add ‘sexual orientation’ to the non-discrimination policy of San Francisco. They knew the gay community was an ally, and they understood that job and housing protection is an important civil rights issue.

I watched this scene in a movie theater in Anchorage, Alaska, where 30 years later we do not have ‘sexual orientation’ in the city’s non-discrimination policy. It isn’t in the state policy either. Or the national policy.

We still have a long way to go.

If you haven’t seen Milk, definitely see it. Remember to take the Milk Challenge — boycott the concession stand and give a donation to Alaskans Together for Equality, to off-set the ticket profit to the Mormon-owned and Prop 8 supporting Century/Cinemark.

If you saw Milk, what did you think about it?