Dan White, the guy who shot and killed Harvey Milk, wasn't some leftist (though he was a democrat), and he wasn't angered about a decent wage, Harvey Milk basically screwed (metaphorically speaking) him, and his district, and ruined the guys life.
Its not hard to see what Milk did to the guy, that the jury was sympathetic to Dan White. Dan White wasn't some lowlife with a petty grudge, he has a pretty good reason to be angry, Milk was out to destroy the guys district (Dan White was also a politician) and he did ruin the mans life.
That is subjective. I will stick with my understanding of the situation. White was a leftist and went around doing things very poorly to correct it.