The U.S. Navy is currently building a ship that will be named after the late gay rights activist Harvey Milk, according to CNN.
The San Francisco-based Milk, who was allegedly discharged from the Navy due to his sexual preferences, had a short career as a politician on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors before his assassination in 1978. The announcement of the new ship was made at a ceremony in San Diego by Milk’s nephew Stuart Milk, who said that the move would “send a global message of inclusion.”
Once completed, the ship will serve as an oiler that will refuel other vessels at sea. Other ships in the same class have been named after civil rights leaders such as Robert F. Kennedy.
The decision comes seven years after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors first began pressuring the Navy, then under Secretary Raymond Mabus, to name a ship after Milk. Mabus ultimately signed off on the decision, as part of his broader effort to introduce more left-wing politics and themes of “social justice” into the United States Navy.