JUNEAU— An Alaska state senator suffered from a case of misidentification during a committee hearing Tuesday, confusing the name of assistant attorney general with an assassinated gay rights leader.
Sen. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak, introduced the assistant attorney general at the Senate State Affairs meeting as “Attorney General Harvey Milk.”
The man didn’t correct Stoltze other than to identify himself as “assistant Attorney General Bill Milks.”
Stoltze apologized, and indicated he confused the attorney’s name with the movie.
Harvey Milk, one of the nation’s first openly gay elected officials, was a San Francisco supervisor assassinated in 1978. A film about his life, “Milk,” earned Sean Penn the Academy Award for best actor in 2008.
Stoltze then told Milks, “I’m sorry. And if there’s a Mrs. Milks, I’m really sorry.”
Milks was one of the state’s attorneys who defended Alaska’s ban on gay marriage before the U.S. Supreme Court allowed same-sex marriage nationwide. He didn’t immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.
