WASHINGTON – Retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis said Friday that he disagrees with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordering the Navy to take the rare step of renaming the USNS Harvey Milk because Milk was gay.
“I am scratching my head about renaming the USS USNS … Harvey Milk,” Stavridis said on SiriusXM’s “The Michael Smerconish Program.”
“Because Harvey Milk was gay, we all know that. But today, gay sailors serve openly and with a great deal of pride in the U.S. military. I know many who are gay and are very competent, war-fighting sailors,” Stavridis said. “So when [the] secretary of defense says, ‘Hey, I’m renaming this in order to restore the warrior ethos,’ I just don’t get that at all.”
Milk, who was a San Francisco politician in the 1970s and the first openly gay man elected to public office in California, served in the Navy for four years during the Korean War. He was forced to resign in 1955 rather than face a court-martial for being gay. A trailblazer in the LGBTQ+ community, Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 and honored with a Navy ship named after him in 2016.
Hegseth’s order is unusual, and its timing — coinciding with Pride Month in June — was intentional, per a Military.com report.
Asked for comment about Hegseth timing his order with Pride Month, a Defense Department spokesperson shared a statement from chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell that didn’t actually answer the question.
“Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos. Any potential renaming(s) will be announced after internal reviews are complete,” Parnell said in his statement.
Asked again for comment on the timing of Hegseth’s order to remove Milk’s name from the Navy ship, the Defense Department spokesperson said only, “I do not have any additional information to provide.”
Former Navy Adm. James Stavridis says he disagrees with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, left, ordering the Navy to rename a ship honoring Harvey Milk, right. AP
Stavridis, who served as the commander of the U.S. Southern Command from 2006 to 2009, and as commander of the U.S. European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe from 2009 to 2013, recounted how gay soldiers have served in militaries for centuries.
“I’m Greek American. Arguably the greatest general in history, Alexander the Great, was gay,” Stavridis said. “And oh, by the way, [gay] people serve at the highest level of the U.S. Cabinet today, like secretary of the treasury, who I think is doing a pretty good job with a tough hand of cards. [Scott] Bessent is openly gay.”
“So I don’t get it on why we need to rename this ship, this moment, and also to do it during Pride Month,” he added. “Just as kind of a shot across the bow. … I don’t agree with it.”
Someone else who doesn’t agree with this is former longtime House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who tore into Hegseth over the move.
“The reported decision by the Trump Administration to change the names of the USNS Harvey Milk and other ships in the John Lewis-class is a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream,” Pelosi said in a statement.
“Our military is the most powerful in the world — but this spiteful move does not strengthen our national security or the ‘warrior’ ethos,” she said.
Gay, lesbian and bisexual people have been openly serving in the U.S. military since 2011, when President Barack Obama signed a bill into law repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. President Joe Biden lifted a ban on transgender people openly serving in the military in 2021, but President Donald Trump reinstated the ban this year.
