California Gov. Gavin Newsom is threatening to fine the Temecula Valley Unified School District $1.5 million for rejecting a social studies textbook that mentions Harvey Milk, the gay San Francisco supervisor slain in 1978.
“Why even mention a pedophile?” wondered Temecula school board member Joseph Komrosky.
“An offensive statement from an ignorant person,” tweeted Gov. Newsom.
Komrosky, a former U.S. Army Ranger, earned a PhD in philosophy from Claremont Graduate University and teaches logic at Mount San Antonio College. The Temecula board member also worked in nuclear medicine, primarily positive emission tomography (PET/CT), for more than 20 years.
“My word choice is based upon facts represented by Mr. Milk,” said Komrosky, in response to the governor, “and I don’t believe those facts are a good example for our children to learn about in elementary school.” For the facts about Mr. Milk, parents can check out Daniel Flynn’s Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco.
Born in 1931, in Woodmere, New York, Milk claimed the Navy tossed him for being homosexual. In fact, as biographer Randy Shilts noted in The Mayor of Castro Street, after serving nearly four years, Milk was honorably discharged in 1955 as a lieutenant, junior grade.
“Milk’s taste in men veered toward boys,” Flynn explains. Milk was nearly 17 years older than teenager Joe Campbell and Jack Galen was only 16 to Milk’s 33. Former Marine Oliver “Bill” Sipple slept with men and “knew that Harvey Milk slept with boys.” In a letter to Sipple, Milk said he had many things to do that day, such as “cook dinner, fuck Jack, take a bath, fuck Jack, listen to some music, fuck Jack, wash the dishes, fuck Jack,” and so on.
In September of 1975, Sipple managed to stop leftist radical Sara Jane Moore from assassinating President Gerald Ford. After this heroic act, Milk proceeded to out Sipple without his consent. As Flynn notes, “Harvey Milk outed Bill Sipple as a homosexual. Bill Sipple never outed Harvey Milk as a pederast.”
As Flynn recalls, Milk became a cheerleader for Jim Jones, writing, “Such greatness I have found at Jim Jones’ People’s Temple.” Jones responded with support for Milk’s campaigns but nothing about Jones emerges in the Oscar-winning Milk, a 2008 feature film starring Sean Penn.
Blue-collar Democrat Dan White, a former policeman and firefighter, voted with Milk to support gay issues. Contrary to urban legend, White did not kill Milk because he was gay. Flynn cites supervisor Dianne Feinstein, who confirmed, “this had nothing to do with anybody’s sexual orientation. It had to do with getting back his position.”
Harvey Milk was not a victim of anti-gay violence and had not been kicked out of the Navy because he was homosexual. Milk was a pederast, which fully qualifies him as a pedophile. So Gov. Newsom, not board member Komrosky, is the ignorant party, but there’s more to it.
Democrats in California’s Assembly Public Safety Committee recently blocked Senate Bill 14, which made sex trafficking of minors a serious crime eligible for the state’s “three strikes” law. Gov. Newsom said he was surprised by the move and claimed that he “cares deeply” about the trafficking issue. Californians have room for doubt.
In September of 2020, Gov. Newsom signed Senate Bill 145, by Scott Weiner, San Francisco Democrat. The measure exempts from mandatory registration under the state’s sex offender registration act, “a person convicted of certain offenses involving minors if the person is not more than 10 years older than the minor and if that offense is the only one requiring the person to register.”
“Gov. Newsom signed a bill to protect sex offenders who have homosexual sex with minors,” explains Katy Grimes of the California Globe. “The bill allows a 24-year-old to have sex with a 14-year-old and escape a felony conviction and requirement to be a registered sex offender.” This should not be a surprise in a state that made a hero out of Harvey Milk.
The facts about this pedophile lead Temecula board members to reject the social studies text Newsom wants them to use. Gov. Newsom says “the state will do their job for them.” Parents might wonder how well the state is performing that job.
“California will spend about $128 billion on K–12 public education this fiscal year,” explains Lee Ohanian, economics professor at UCLA and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. “This amount exceeds the entire budget of all states except New York and Texas and is roughly equal to the combined state budgets of Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Tennessee.”
Despite this level of spending, Ohanian notes, “about 75 percent of California students lack proficiency in core subject areas based on federal education standards.” Gov. Newsom, who wants kids to learn about Harvey Milk, cannot be ignorant of that reality.
California’s governor chooses to send his own children to an upscale private school in Sacramento. As it happens, the Golden State has never had a governor who sought to extend school choice to parents statewide. Republican Gov. Pete Wilson failed to support Proposition 174 in 1993.
Parents should be able to take their education dollars and send their children to the school of their choice, government or independent. A governor who supported parents’ right to choose would be truly historic.