The Navy has sent congressional notification that it intends to name a new oiler ship after slain gay right activist Harvey Milk, a US Navy official confirmed Friday to CNN.
The Navy is declining to comment further until the official naming announcement.
Harvey Milk was a San Francisco politician and gay rights activist. He was murdered in 1978.
The notification sent July 14 was signed by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.
News of the commissioning was first reported by the US Naval Institute News.
Once commissioned, the USNS Harvey Milk would be part of the John Lewis-class oilers, a class named after Georgia Congressman and civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, and Mabus has said this particular class of vessels would be named after various leaders from the civil rights movement.
Milk, the first openly gay politician from California to be elected to office, served in the Navy as a dive instructor in San Diego during the Korean war.
The oiler is a combat logistics ship that replenishes other ships at sea with fuel and other provisions such as food.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – FEBRUARY 22: A supporter holds a sign with the image of slain San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk during a rally at San Francisco City Hall on February 22, 2013 in San Francisco, California. Dozens of supporters staged a rally in front of San Francisco City Hall to support San Francisco supervisor David Campos’s Harvey Milk SFO charter amendment that aims to change the name of the San Francisco International Airport to Harvey Milk SFO in honor of the Milk who was the first openly gay elected official in the United States. Milk was assassinated on November 27, 1978 along with then San Francisco Mayor George Moscone by Dan White, a San Francisco supervisor who had recently resigned. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
