What if ...

TWO OF THE WORDS THAT RUN THROUGH MY HEAD most often (after Taco and Bell) are what and if. Used together, they're sometimes a sign of anxiety--as in "What if my 401(k) never recovers?" But more often they're the precursor to some sort of contemplative exercise--as is the case with the question on the cover of this magazine: What if Harvey Milk hadn't been murdered?

The trick with posing this sort of query is that it's so easy to get lost in the fantasy--or the Bambi Factor--of it all. As a kid I couldn't watch the Disney feature without asking, What if the hunter stays home this time? What I wish I'd known at the time is that there were lessons to be learned in the cartoon's "reality," if you will. Bambi might have grown up to be a wimpy buck--unable to stand on his own four hooves--if his mother had continued to live.

Similarly, 30 years after Milk's murder, it does little good to simply wonder what would have happened if the hunter in this story--Dan White--had stayed home on November 27, 1978. After his senseless rampage through San Francisco City Hall that day, there was nothing that could bring Milk or Mayor George Moscone back to life. But as Michael Martin shows in his thought-provoking cover story (page 32), there's loads to learn about who we are--and how we got to where we are today--by contemplating how different things might have been if Milk hadn't died. In 1978 nobody could have guessed how HIV/ AIDS would cripple the Castro (and gay neighborhoods and people everywhere) just three years later. But how much stronger are we as a community of gay men and lesbians for having made it through the darkest days of the AIDS crisis--for standing on our own two feet--without the charismatic leadership of a man like Milk?

As our cover story points out, Harvey Milk made a name for himself, in part, by successfully campaigning against the Briggs Initiative, a 1978 ballot proposal that would have prohibited gay people from teaching in California's public schools. As I write this letter, Californians are again preparing to vote on gay people's equality--this time deciding whether to rescind our right to marry. By the time many of you pick up this magazine, you'll know what I don't now--the outcome of this vote. And that has me playing another game of What if ... in my head. If the antigay Proposition 8 fails, here's hoping you celebrate as hard as Harvey Milk would have. But, if for some awful reason, we lose this fight, please remember another of Milk's lessons--to never give up.

(The stunning news out of Connecticut--marriage equality!--came just as we were rushing this issue to the printer. Turn to page 28 for our report on the state supreme court's groundbreaking ruling and to Advocate.com for up-to-the-minute coverage of its ramifications.)

JON BARRETT

EDITOR IN CHIEF