Breaking down resurfaced rumors that Harvey Milk was a pedophile
In early June 2025, also known as Pride Month, rumors circulated that Harvey Milk, a gay rights activist and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, was a ped*ph*le. The claim spread online as Military.com reported U.S. Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth had ordered the U.S. Navy to rename one of its ships that bore the name "Harvey Milk."
For example, an X user relayed the rumor (archived):
As of this writing, the post had gained nearly 50,000 views and 2,100 likes. The claim further appeared on several other X posts, one of which sought to support its assertion by recounting a relationship Milk, then 33 years old, had started with Jack Galen McKinley, who was 16 years old at the time, in "true groomer fashion" (archived):
In 2021, the U.S. Navy sought to honor Milk by christening a ship in his name. Milk served in the Navy for four years. He resigned in 1955 following a psychiatric examination that identified him as a homosexual person rather than being court-martialed.
Hegseth's order revived old rumors that the gay rights leader, who was assassinated in 1978, was a ped*ph*le. Snopes found an instance of the claim in 2011, reportedly shared by a group known as SaveCalifornia, which attacked a successful statewide initiative to celebrate Milk's legacy in schools. The SaveCalifornia website also posted about "Harvey Milk Day" in California's public schools in 2019, calling for an end to the commemoration for the sake of protecting children. On the page, a three-minute YouTube video appeared calling Milk a "predator of teens."
It is true that in 1964, Milk, then 33 years old, entered a relationship with Galen McKinley, who was 16 years old, according to the Milk biography, "Harvey Milk: His Lives and Death." The relationship started in New York City.
Snopes reached out to the New York State Library to confirm what the age of consent was in the state and city that year and we will update this report should they respond.
Later, the pair spent time in California, where the age of consent has been 18 years old since at least 1920. Their California sojourn occurred around 1969, when Galen McKinley was 23 years old. The two remained a couple until at least 1970 and they stayed in touch for years after that.
Absent a clear age of consent in the state of New York, however, Snopes examined psychiatric criteria to determine whether Milk would be considered a ped*ph*le for entering into a relationship with Galen McKinley. Pedophilia is not a legal term but a clinical one. In fact, the American Psychological Association (APA) treats pedophilia as a mental disorder, defining it as "a paraphilia in which sexual acts or fantasies involving prepubertal children are the persistently preferred or exclusive method of achieving sexual excitement." Prepubertal children can be as old as 11 years old. In other words, a 16-year-old boy is not prepubertal. The APA and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders have yet to define the attraction to children older than 11 years of age.
For example, while California has established the age of consent at 18, it also includes a statute according to which "a person who willfully and lewdly commits any lewd or lascivious act, including any of the acts constituting other crimes provided for in Part 1, upon or with the body, or any part or member thereof, of a child who is under the age of 14 years, with the intent of arousing, appealing to, or gratifying the lust, passions, or sexual desires of that person or the child, is guilty of a felony and shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for three, six, or eight years."
In other words, the law of the state makes a distinction between the age of consent and sexual crimes committed against children younger than 14 years old.
In sum, while it is possible Milk's relationship with Galen McKinley may have violated the laws of consent in the state of New York in 1964, it does not appear that modern psychological standards would deem him a ped*ph*le. We will update this report when we can determine what the age of consent was in the state at the time the relationship took place.
"A Complete Genealogy and Family History Resource Center." MyTrees.com, 2025, www.mytrees.com/cgi-bin/yaossdirslt?ssdim.dat+2. Accessed 4 June 2025..
Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20230724214206/https://www.mytrees.com/cgi-bin/yaossdirslt?ssdim.dat+277594075.
Adminstrator 1. "Harvey Milk Day// - SaveCalifornia.com." Savecalifornia.com, 2019, savecalifornia.com/harvey-milk-day.html. Accessed 4 June 2025.
Blanchard, Ray, et al. "Pedophilia, Hebephilia, and the DSM-V." Archives of Sexual Behavior, vol. 38, no. 3, Aug. 2008, pp. 335–50, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9399-9. Accessed 4 June 2025.
"Children and Youth in History | Age of Consent Laws [Table]." Rrchnm.org, 2021, cyh.rrchnm.org/primary-sources/24.html. Accessed 4 June 2025.
Kratz, Jessie. "Harvey Milk: Veteran." Pieces of History, 28 June 2023, prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2023/06/28/harvey-milk-veteran/. Accessed 4 June 2025.
"Law Section." Leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=288.&lawCode=PEN. Accessed 4 June 2025.
Mehta, Kalika. "US Navy to Rename Ship Named after Gay Activist Harvey Milk." Dw.com, Deutsche Welle, 3 June 2025, www.dw.com/en/us-navy-to-rename-ship-named-after-gay-activist-harvey-milk/a-72781710. Accessed 4 June 2025.
Milk, Harvey. "Jewish Lives." Jewish Lives, 2024, www.jewishlives.org/books/milk?srsltid=AfmBOoo6mDRga7smub5F-1It5ZS8ITpBcSLClBmcVK3BZWdDSdn0ef5i. Accessed 4 June 2025.
"Pedophilia | APA Dictionary of Psychology." Dictionary.apa.org, dictionary.apa.org/pedophilia. Accessed 4 June 2025.
Writers, Staff. "Milk Pedophile Claim." Star Observer, 31 May 2011, www.starobserver.com.au/news/milk-pedophile-claim/53254. Accessed 4 June 2025.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
The Pride Month ‘vibe shift' comes to Utah. Can Utahns find common ground this June?
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox broke with his party this week as the only Republican governor to make a statement in response to what some celebrate as Pride Month during the month of June. But he also broke from his own custom. Instead of officially declaring June 'Pride Month' — as he had his first three years in office — Cox released a simple message, similar to last year's declaration, about the importance of seeking unity and compassion. 'This June I'm reflecting on the values that bring us together here in Utah — service, respect, and love for our neighbor," Cox said in a post on X. 'To those celebrating Pride and to all Utahns: may we keep building bridges of understanding and strive always to see the humanity in one another.' As has become a common feature of the polarized discourse on social media, Cox's statement earned the ire of LGBTQ activists, for not officially recognizing Pride Month, and conservative influencers, for acknowledging the occasion at all. While it may have failed to please partisans on both sides of the spectrum, the governor's message might point to a better way to strengthen a pluralistic society, according to Paul Edwards, director of the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University. A focus on personal bridge-building can transcend the conflict between divisive diversity, equity and inclusion efforts that amplify identity politics, and a rigid affirmation of traditional values that ignores cultural differences, Edwards said. 'It's vital that we get this right because we do need to live together in some kind of peace,' Edwards said in an interview with the Deseret News. 'And that is possible, probably in more ways than we sometimes believe.' This year has seen a number of organizations — public and private — back away from their previously open endorsements of Pride Month celebrations. The Utah Transit Authority will not participate in this year's Pride parade for the first time since 2022 as part of a temporary hold to ensure 'consistency and responsible stewardship of public funds,' according to a UTA spokesperson. Likewise, the University of Utah has discontinued its official sponsorship of the downtown Salt Lake City Pride celebration, which it had supported for 'several years,' according to a university spokesperson. The university will still encourage students to join its entry in the parade and continues to hold a 'Pride Week' every spring while students are on campus, featuring a fundraising 'gayla' and 'Drag Bingo.' These changes in Pride participation follow a series of steps taken by state lawmakers to restrict some transgender treatments for minors, prevent exclusionary DEI practices at government entities and prohibit most flags in public schools. But they also come amid what some are proclaiming a 'vibe shift‚" or cultural realignment away from socially liberal stances. After years of touting their support of Pride, corporations like Comcast, Anheuser-Busch and Nissan have pulled funding from Pride festivals across the country; organizations like Target have swapped rainbow decorations for American flags; and the Trump administration has officially declared June 'Title IX Month.' 'There's a massive vibe shift,' anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck told the Deseret News. 'The public-facing things they used to do like Pride logos on their social media, or company-wide emails are no longer happening.' Policy changes like this can be attributed to a backlash among Americans, many of them parents, who believe 'symbols matter' when it comes to the places they will spend their money, according to Starbuck. But, he acknowledged, it is also the result of partisan activism, like his own, that verbally attacks, shames and boycotts organizations for taking a public position on an increasingly politicized issue. This year Starbuck has mobilized a group of supporters to film Pride parades around the country to document 'inappropriate behavior that occurs in view of children' and then to link the events to the companies sponsoring them. 'What you tolerate, in many ways, becomes who you are,' Starbuck said. 'However you bring about that change to bring something positive to the forefront, I don't think that really matters.' One state lawmaker, Rep. Trevor Lee, R-Layton, has drafted a bill for next session that would wield state power to discourage private organizations from announcing support of messages like Pride Month if they receive public subsidies. Lee, the primary sponsor of the 2024 law banning political flags in classrooms and on government flagpoles, told the Deseret News the bill in its current form would make taxpayer dollars in public-private partnerships contingent on organizations remaining politically neutral. Lee teased the legislation during a social media spat over the weekend where he criticized Pride Month posts from the Utah Jazz and Utah Mammoth — both owned by Smith Entertainment Group which is set to receive nearly $1 billion in public funds to revitalize parts of downtown. 'This isn't necessarily about Pride,' Lee said. 'It's about political neutrality.' Marina Lowe, the policy director of one of Utah's largest LGBTQ advocacy organizations, Equality Utah, slammed Lee's proposal as 'unAmerican' and 'anti-conservative,' arguing that it violates the First Amendment by telling private businesses what speech they can use. From her point of view, Pride Month and the rainbow flag shouldn't be considered political in the first place; they represent 'a celebration of love, community, getting to be oneself authentically,' Lowe said. What the so-called 'vibe shift' really shows, whether it be in statements from public officials or support from corporations, is how intense polarization, which stirs outrage across the political spectrum, has chilled free expression, Lowe said. 'That is sort of the world that we're living in right now, that it's impossible to take positions on things without that being weaponized against one side or the other,' Lowe said. 'We do need to get to a better place of healthy pluralism, where we all can coexist and work together, despite the fact that we have differences and differences of opinions about topics.' On Friday, standing in front of the City and County Building, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall launched Pride Month by raising a Progress Pride Flag imprinted with the city's logo. A month earlier, the altered version of Salt Lake City's flag was officially adopted in a successful move to skirt the Legislature's new law prohibiting local governments from flying most flags. In her speech, Mendenhall said the 'new Sego Belonging Flag' celebrates 'the diversity of the LGBTQ community' and 'does not exclude others.' However, several conservative constituents took to social media to express anger that the city would continue to promote a message that many Utahns feel conflicts with their deeply held beliefs about family, identity and sexuality. One Utah leader, who understands both sides of the Pride Month debate, said there is a way for all Utahns, regardless of whether 'Pride' encourages or offends them, to be intentional about reaching out to others. The Rev. Marian Edmonds-Allen is a gay pastor based in Ogden who directs a group called Parity, an international nonprofit that works to heal 'LGBT and faith divides,' and who played a significant role in shaping Utah's 2015 'Utah Compromise,' that balanced LGBTQ anti-discrimination protections with religious freedom rights. More recently, her organization completed a pilot program with students and faculty from Brigham Young University called 'Faith, Hope, and Love' that aims to help religious individuals 'stand strong in their faith and convictions while maintaining a posture of compassion and grace in relationship with LGBT individuals.' 'Often someone knows a person who is LGBT, either at their workplace or in their family or their neighborhood, it's a wonderful time to say, 'Thinking of you and your family,'' the Rev. Edmonds-Allen said. 'It doesn't need to mention Pride or LGBT, but just being friendly to someone.' In her experience, Utah has been 'a shining light' in demonstrating what the Rev. Edmonds-Allen calls 'covenantal pluralism,' the idea that people of faith can hold firm to their religious beliefs while still being able to interact with someone who believes differently. Far from being a softening of one's beliefs, the Rev. Edmonds-Allen views this intentional cultivation of pluralism as 'a fundamental principle of Christianity.' It is also one of the core 'responsibilities of citizenship,' according to BYU's Paul Edwards. As the excesses of DEI have elicited an equally 'dogmatic' response in the opposite direction, Edwards believes it is more important than ever for Americans 'to try to understand our fellow citizens.' 'There's just too many sharp elbows out there right now and hurtful words,' Edwards said. 'We all love this great state and this great country, and let's find ways to honor that and not be seeking for ways to be offended by a word or a flag.'
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
AI-generated Pope sermons flood YouTube, TikTok
AI-generated videos and audios of Pope Leo XIV are populating rapidly online, racking up views as platforms struggle to police them. An AFP investigation identified dozens of YouTube and TikTok pages that have been churning out AI-generated messages delivered in the pope's voice or otherwise attributed to him since he took charge of the Catholic Church last month. The hundreds of fabricated sermons and speeches, in English and Spanish, underscore how easily hoaxes created using artificial intelligence can elude detection and dupe viewers. "There's natural interest in what the new pope has to say, and people don't yet know his stance and style," said University of Washington professor emeritus Oren Etzioni, founder of a nonprofit focused on fighting deepfakes. "A perfect opportunity to sow mischief with AI-generated misinformation." After AFP presented YouTube with 26 channels posting predominantly AI-generated pope content, the platform terminated 16 of them for violating its policies against spam, deceptive practices and scams, and another for violating YouTube's terms of service. "We terminated several channels flagged to us by AFP for violating our Spam policies and Terms of Service," spokesperson Jack Malon said. The company also booted an additional six pages from its partner program allowing creators to monetize their content. TikTok similarly removed 11 accounts that AFP pointed out -- with over 1.3 million combined followers -- citing the platform's policies against impersonation, harmful misinformation and misleading AI-generated content of public figures. - 'Chaotic uses' - With names such as "Pope Leo XIV Vision," the social media pages portrayed the pontiff supposedly offering a flurry of warnings and lessons he never preached. But disclaimers annotating their use of AI were often hard to find -- and sometimes nonexistent. On YouTube, a label demarcating "altered or synthetic content" is required for material that makes someone appear to say something they did not. But such disclosures only show up toward the bottom of each video's click-to-open description. A YouTube spokesperson said the company has since applied a more prominent label to some videos on the channels flagged by AFP that were not found to have violated the platform's guidelines. TikTok also requires creators to label posts sharing realistic AI-generated content, though several pope-centric videos went unmarked. A TikTok spokesperson said the company proactively removes policy-violating content and uses verified badges to signal authentic accounts. Brian Patrick Green, director of technology ethics at Santa Clara University, said the moderation difficulties are the result of rapid AI developments inspiring "chaotic uses of the technology." Many clips on the YouTube channels AFP identified amassed tens of thousands of views before being deactivated. On TikTok, one Spanish-language video received 9.6 million views while claiming to show Leo preaching about the value of supportive women. Another, which carried an AI label but still fooled viewers, was watched some 32.9 million times. No video on the pope's official Instagram page has more than 6 million views. Experts say even seemingly harmless fakes can be problematic especially if used to farm engagement for accounts that might later sell their audiences or pivot to other misinformation. The AI-generated sermons not only "corrode the pope's moral authority" and "make whatever he actually says less believable," Green said, but could be harnessed "to build up trust around your channel before having the pope say something outrageous or politically expedient." The pope himself has also warned about the risks of AI, while Vatican News called out a deepfake that purported to show Leo praising Burkina Faso leader Ibrahim Traore, who seized power in a 2022 coup. AFP also debunked clips depicting the pope, who holds American and Peruvian citizenships, criticizing US Vice President JD Vance and Peru's President Dina Boluarte. "There's a real crisis here," Green said. "We're going to have to figure out some way to know whether things are real or fake." bmc/mgs/sms
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump Tower is throwing a Pride month party for LGBTQ+ Republicans despite White House dodging events
Trump Tower will host a Pride month event later this June, despite the White House refusing to officially acknowledge the celebrations. The event, hosted by Log Cabin Republicans of New York City, will take place at the president's Manhattan hub, promising an evening of drinks, canapes and networking for LGBTQ conservatives. 'I'll be bringing my pride flag!' wrote one user, in response to the post on the group's official Instagram page announcing the event, adding a U.S. flag emoji. Tickets cost $175 dollars, or $150 for 'dues-paying members.' It comes after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dodged a question on whether the Trump administration would formally be recognizing June as Pride Month. 'There are no plans for a proclamation for the month of June,' Leavitt said during a media briefing on Tuesday. 'But I can tell you this president is very proud to be a president for all Americans, regardless of race, religion or creed.' Trump also declined to issue a proclamation recognizing Pride Month during his first term, but did acknowledge it on social media in a post in which he recognized 'the outstanding contributions LGBT people have made to our great Nation.' 'Let us also stand in solidarity with the many LGBT people who live in dozens of countries worldwide that punish, imprison, or even execute individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation,' Trump wrote on X, then Twitter, in 2019. 'My Administration has launched a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality and invite all nations to join us in this effort,' he said at the time. The Log Cabin event at Trump Tower on June 28 attracted criticism and mockery from other LGBTQ outlets, including Queerty, who branded it a party 'for all the worst gays.' The outlet also highlighted the perceived hypocrisy of the event against the background of the Trump administration's attitude to the LGBTQ community, particularly transgender people, and the resulting fallout. which have publicly acknowledged Pride month with social media posts or by displaying flags have been bashed online, while congressional Republicans accused PBS of 'grooming' children after 'Sesame Street' shared a post recognizing Pride Month on Sunday. Earlier this week, it was reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered that a ship bearing the name of gay rights icon and Navy veteran Harvey Milk be renamed.
