San Fran supervisor: Ouija board consultation with Milk a joke

A San Francisco supervisor who said he consulted a Ouija board before a vote now says he was joking – and the only spirit he was summoning was the spirit of humor.

Supervisors on May 22 approved a non-binding resolution urging the U.S. Navy to name a ship after slain supervisor and gay rights activist Harvey Milk.

Harvey Milk Day, a California holiday, was observed on May 22, which is Milk’s birth date.

Supervisor John Avalos told the San Francisco Chronicle that before voting, he believes he made contact with Milk’s spirit and that Milk spelled out letters indicating: “Good riddance to don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The quip made national news as an example of San Francisco wackiness.

However, Avalos now says he was just kidding and the closest he’s gone to the occult is reading all the Harry Potter books.

The proposal to rename a ship for Milk was introduced earlier this year in both San Francisco, where Milk lived, worked and was elected supervisor, and San Diego, where Milk was a diving instructor with the Navy during the Korean War era.

The San Francisco board vote went 9-2 in favor of a non-binding resolution on the proposal, which would be decided by the secretary of the Navy.

Dissenters noted that Milk, who was honorably discharged from the Navy in 1955 at the rank of lieutenant, was a vocal opponent of the war in Vietnam.

However, the Navy has named at least one ship for a war dissenter – the late U.S. Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a Vietnam veteran who opposed the war in Iraq.

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