Actor Sean Penn hammered Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for attempting to erase LGBTQ activist Harvey Milk’s service record.
Penn, 64, ripped Hegseth as “Chief PETTY Officer” in an email to The Hollywood Reporter after it was revealed in a leaked Pentagon memo that the United States Naval Ship Harvey Milk—christened in Milk’s honor on Nov. 6, 2021, in San Diego—will be renamed.
Milk served four years in the Navy during the 1950 Korean War but was discharged amid questions over his sexual orientation. Milk went on to have a successful career in activism and politics, becoming the first openly-gay member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors before he was assassinated in 1978.
“I’ve never before seen a Secretary of Defense so aggressively demote himself to the rank of Chief PETTY Officer,” wrote Penn about the renaming.
Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the film, also chided the renaming move as a distraction.
“This is yet another move to distract and to fuel the culture wars that create division,” Black, 50, told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s meant to get us to react in ways that are self-centered so that we are further distanced from our brothers and sisters in equally important civil rights fights in this country. It’s divide and conquer.”
A Pentagon representative confirmed that the Navy ship would be renamed as part of Hegseth’s larger culture war and “reestablishing the warrior culture” in the armed forces.
The name change plan was hatched to line up with June’s Pride Month celebrations, Military.com reported.
More Navy ship names on the chopping block include USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, USNS Harriet Tubman Navy, and John Lewis-class oilers, CBS reported.
A replacement name for USNS Harvey Milk has not be given.
“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,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to the Daily Beast.
