HR 93
CFC OpposesRelative to Harvey Milk Day
CFC Says
CFC opposes HR 93.
Currently at Committee, having cleared 1 stage.
Legislative Progress
CFC's Position Letter
May 15, 2026
The Honorable Rick Zbur
California State Assembly
1021 O Street, Suite 5230
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: HR 93 (Zbur) — Harvey Milk Day — OPPOSE
Dear Assemblyman Zbur:
On behalf of California Family Council, representing thousands of Californians and more than two thousand churches across the state, I write in respectful but firm opposition to HR 93, which would once again commemorate May 22 as Harvey Milk Day.
Two months ago, this legislature established a clear and bipartisan standard. After the New York Times published credible evidence that United Farm Workers co-founder Cesar Chavez sexually abused two underage girls in the 1970s, the Assembly and Senate acted with unusual speed. AB 2156 cleared the Assembly within days, passed the Senate 37 to 0 with an urgency clause, and was signed by Governor Newsom in time for the March 31 holiday. Cesar Chavez Day became Farmworkers Day.
The legislature did not stop there. Across California, statues of Chavez came down in San Fernando, Fresno, and Tucson. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced the renaming of streets, parks, and city property. Fresno reversed its 2023 decision to name a road after him. School districts reconsidered. Democrats and Republicans renounced him together. The principle was simple, and the legislature articulated it without hesitation: a man who sexually abused minors should not be publicly honored, regardless of how celebrated his other accomplishments may be.
California Family Council agrees with that principle. We are grateful to see Cesar Chavez facing accountability for decades-old allegations of abuse. The young women he harmed deserved the truth, and Californians deserve a state that does not name holidays after men who abused minors.
We write to ask, with all due respect, that the same standard be applied to Harvey Milk.
The facts about Milk and minors are not contested, and they do not come from hostile sources. They come from Randy Shilts, an openly gay journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle and Milk's most sympathetic biographer. In The Mayor of Castro Street, Shilts devotes an entire chapter to Milk's sexual relationship with Jack Galen McKinley, an emotionally troubled 16-year-old runaway, when Milk was 33. The relationship is on the public record. It has been on the public record since 1982. The book sits on the shelves of California libraries and universities. Were the conduct to occur today, it would be statutory rape.
The legislature now faces a question of consistency. The same evidentiary standard that produced an emergency vote against Cesar Chavez two months ago compels honest reconsideration of Harvey Milk today. If the principle is that California should not honor men who sexually abused minors, then the principle either applies to both men or to neither. It cannot apply selectively without inviting the obvious charge that the legislature treats abuse differently depending on the politics of the abuser.
We recognize that Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man elected to public office in a major American city, and we understand the historical significance many Californians attach to him. We do not write to diminish the real injustices LGBT-identified Californians have faced. We write because the same dignity owed to those Californians is owed to a 16-year-old boy who became sexually involved with a man twice his age and emotionally many times his senior. That dignity cannot be set aside for political convenience.
For these reasons, California Family Council respectfully opposes HR 93 and urges you to withdraw or vote against the resolution. We ask the legislature to apply one standard, honestly, to every public figure California chooses to honor.
Thank you for your consideration of our position. We welcome the opportunity to discuss this matter further.
Sincerely,
Greg Burt
Vice President
California Family Council
Official Description
Harvey Milk Day