Fact-Checking Website Snopes Admits Harvey Milk Was a Predator, Defends Him Anyway

PJ Media ^ | 07/18/2025 | Matt Margolis

[SeekAndFind]

Last month, the Department of the Navy officially renamed the USNS Harvey Milk—a much-needed course correction that finally put an end to the disgraceful decision to honor a known sexual predator.

“This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration. Instead, we’re renaming the ship after a United States Navy Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, as it should be,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth explained. “People wanna be proud of the ship they’re sailing in, and so we’re renaming it after a chief, a Navy chief.”

The Navy has renamed the ship the USNS Oscar V. Peterson in honor of Chief Watertender Oscar Peterson, who heroically saved the USS Neosho during the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942. Despite being gravely wounded in a Japanese attack that killed or injured his entire repair team, Peterson managed to shut the bulkhead stop valves himself, helping keep the ship afloat.

Democrats were, of course, outraged at the move, and debate over the decision followed suit, so much so that even Snopes decided to look into the allegations that Harvey Milk was a sexual predator — a fact we’ve been pointing out at PJ Media for years now.

Snopes sets the scene with the usual cautious language, doing somersaults to distance Milk from the worst allegations, but it can’t quite wriggle away from the facts that stared it right in the face. The core issue is unavoidably straightforward: Harvey Milk, gay rights icon and media-anointed hero, was a thirty-something man who engaged in sexual relationships with teenage boys — minors by any standard.

This isn’t some wild right-wing conspiracy; it’s a documented fact, even in sources that are sympathetic to Harvey Milk. Snopes itself reluctantly acknowledged,

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TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: california; genderdysphoria; harveymilk; homosexualagenda; mattmargolis; navy; pjmedia; sanfrancisco; snopes; usn; usnavy

[SeekAndFind]

So, how does Snopes try to mitigate the fact that Milk was a sexual predator?

Snopes has a tell: when the facts are indisputable, cue the excuses. So, rather than confront the implications, it immediately pivoted to hair-splitting over age of consent laws and whether the relationship technically qualifies as pedophilia — an obvious attempt to downplay what it had already conceded. For example, there’s an entire paragraph in Snopes’ fact check that seriously appears to suggest that, because the child was older than 14, what Milk did wasn’t so bad.

According to Snopes, even though the age of consent in California is 18, “the law of the state makes a distinction between the age of consent and sexual crimes committed against children younger than 14 years old.”

Here's how Snopes put it:

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 pedophile. 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.

[Liz]

The core issue, a documented fact, is unavoidably straightforward:
<><>Harvey Milk, gay rights “icon,” and media-anointed hero,
<><>was a thirty-something gay man
<><>who engaged in sexual relationships with teenage boys — minors by any standard.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

Just curious if Snopes takes pains to draw the same distinctions in favor of Epstein....

[Dr. Sivana]

Normally, I am against renaming things already named after a person. I am more than happy to make an exception in this case on the basis of military morale alone.

[blackdog]

I was at an event a few months back where the speaker was a LGTBQ+$$&* and the event was unrelated to that topic.

Mid speech she told about "rescuing school girls from their families and taking them out of the state so they could better experience alternative identities. The girls called me their Dom-Momma".

She was admitting she was a pedophile, kidnapper, and groomer. She told the audience how she would cuddle, talk, play as they explored each other together. Then she described how rich and full their lives would be as adults. She told us that some would become mullet-models and others would be lipstick lusty's.

The even more sick part was that the audience roundly applauded her, and it was at a church. Most the audience was over 50. The minister loved it.

This was at a funeral eulogy for one of her past kidnapped, groomed, and enlightened pals.

I'm not so sure we are coming back from our current trajectory.

[Hammerhead]

They are ALL predators.

[Delta 21]

Fags and the court jester. Despicable!
Did that guy finally get possession of the cats?

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Putting aside the fact that he liked sodomizing underage boys and that he was in bed with mass murderer and Communist (I know, redundant) Jim Jones and hung around with the murdering and Communist and racist (I know, redundant again) Manson Family he was also a con artist who finally got killed by one of his victims.

What the heck is there to defend here?

[Tell It Right]

Agreed. The article rightly states:

Let’s not lose the plot. Thirty-somethings — regardless of orientation, cause, or reputation — seeking out vulnerable teens for sexual relationships paints one picture, and one picture only.

But left unstated is the higher rate of pedo among gays than among straights.

[cpdiii]

Here's how Snopes put it: 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 pedophile. 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.

Harvey Milk: "Yes your honor I did sleep with an underage boy but in my circles this is perfectly normal and a lot of fun. In the state of New York that is legally rape but in my case it does not count"

His Honor: "Okay Harvey that will be 10 years."

[GSWarrior]

The correct term is Ephebophile. It’s still illegal.

[Tell It Right]

Thanks for the reminder of the difference between pedophile and ephebophile (and hebephile).

[fwdude]

Harvey’s milk to little boys.

[Thank You Rush]

I lived in CA at the time he was killed and to show how much water has gone under the bridge - over the dam - since then tells you how buried we’ve gotten in news that doesn’t matter! It made a ripple at the time but after that - buried and forgotten except that Feinstein stepped into the national picture because of it! Oh! Lucky us! Funny how many politicians use an opportunity like that to make our lives miserable by running and winning a higher office.

At that time no one stayed tuned to TV news 24/7 - you worked, came home, caught the local news at 5 or 6 and national news at 6 or 7 - I’ve even forgotten the time but I remember Huntley/Brinkley and Cronkite.....

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Harvey Milk...typical child-molesting faggot.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Queers aren’t “pedophiles”.

They are pederasts. (boy rapists)

[fwdude]

Pedophilia is “who they are.” And therefore a “civil right.”

[fwdude]

I hope you took notes and names so you could report these crimes to the highest authorities.

[fwdude]

They are ALL predators.

I think I've related my own story as a high school freshman when an assistant band director touched my developing adolescent mustache as he commented on it. I was very uncomfortable at the time but just chalked it up to being oversensitive over an innocuous comment made with an accompanying gesture.

Many years later, I learned that this band instructor was "gay" after he was killed in a robber of a queer bar he co-owned and operated. He had retired from teaching in high schools a few years earlier, and was hit in the head as he carried the night's receipts out of the bar. He had become quite the activist after he retired.

I became sick when I learned this about him. I felt violated in retrospect.