Harvey Milk’s (sexual and sacred) body

Authors

  • William K Gilders Emory University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/bar.15678

Keywords:

queer, sexuality, martyr, saint, sanctity, icon

Abstract

Harvey Milk has been constituted as a queer saint. This article, in the self-identifying voice of a gay man, explores the significance of Harvey Milk’s queer cultural sanctity in relation to his sexual embodiment, emphasizing that ‘Saint Harvey’ was a leading figure in a movement of sexual liberation and was himself a strongly sexual being, facts sometimes downplayed in his representation as a sacred figure in contrast with his vitally sexual pre-assassination body. Examining the phenomenon of the ‘canonization’ of a sexually embodied gay Jewish agnostic, the article asks what happens when Milk’s sacralization is explicitly tied to his sexuality, focusing on a central question: can a saint be a sexual being, not peripherally or incidentally, but centrally and essentially?

Author Biography

  • William K Gilders, Emory University

    William K. Gilders is an associate professor in the Department of Religion and the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. He works in cultural history, especially its religious dimensions, ranging geographically and chronologically from the ancient Mediterranean world to twenty-first-century North America, with special attention to collective memory and the deployment of images and constructions of the past. His research presently focuses on cultural agency and creativity in North American LGBTQ communities.

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Published

2022-07-24

How to Cite

Gilders, W. K. (2022). Harvey Milk’s (sexual and sacred) body. Body and Religion, 5(1), 4–23. https://doi.org/10.1558/bar.15678