White House salutes LGBT officials on Harvey Milk Day
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Pictured: Georgia state Rep. Simone Bell; Calif. Sec. of Natural Resources John Laird; Calif. state Sen. Ricardo Lara; Colo. state Sen. Pat Steadman; Gautum Raghavan of the White House Office of Public Engagement.
May 22, 2013 / Gay Politics
White House officials including Valerie Jarrett, a top adviser to President Obama, today spoke at an event honoring “Harvey Milk Champions of Change,” a group of 10 openly LGBT elected and appointed officials who were nominated for the honor by the American public.
Deputy Assistant to the President David Agnew opened the event by introducing the out officials to a crowd of more than 100 at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Stuart Milk, the nephew of the late civil rights hero Harvey Milk, gave a keynote speech in which he congratulated the honorees and spoke about his uncle’s dream that LGBT people would one day serve in elected office everywhere.
“The last time I was at the White House to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom in my uncle’s honor, the president leaned in and asked me, ‘Do you think Harvey would have ever seen this coming?’ And I said, ‘Yes, sir. He always believed we would get here,’” Milk said.
The two-hour celebration of the contributions of LGBT officials included two panels moderated by White House staffers Gautam Raghavan and Kellyn Blossom.
The 2013 Harvey Milk Champions of Change are:
Simone Bell – Georgia State Representative, Atlanta, GA
Angie Buhl O’Donnell – South Dakota State Senator, Sioux Falls, SD
Karen Clark – Minnesota State Representative, South Minneapolis, MN
Michael A. Gin – Mayor of Redondo Beach, Redondo Beach, CA
Kim Coco Iwamoto – Hawaii State Civil Rights Commissioner, Honolulu, HI
John Laird – California Secretary of Natural Resources, Santa Cruz, CA
Ricardo Lara – California State Senator, Long Beach, CA
Kim Painter – Johnson Country Recorder, Iowa City, IA
Chris Seelbach – Cincinnati City Council Member, Cincinnati, OH
Pat Steadman – Colorado State Senator, Denver, CO
