Earlier today, Steve linked to a report posted on Queerty.com that Equality California had disinvited Dustin Lance Black from a Harvey Milk Day event at the home of Sharon and Kelly Osborne after Perez Hilton accepted their invite to the same event.
Equality California reached out to Towleroad with a statement regarding the event and what transpired:
Statement from Geoff Kors, Executive Director, Equality California, on EQCA Harvey Milk Day Event with the Osbornes:
"Yesterday, for the first ever Harvey Milk Day, LGBT people and our allies celebrated Milk's legacy across the state. We appreciate that there are lots of differences within our community, but this day for recognizing Milk's legacy is bigger than any of us.
We didn't disinvite Dustin Lance Black from EQCA's Harvey Milk Day event held at the home of Sharon and Kelly Osborne. We invited him to every one of our Harvey Milk Day events and really appreciate his joining us to kick off a door-to-door canvass in Los Angeles in the morning, speaking at Los Angeles City Hall with the City Council and Mayor on Friday, and working for weeks to help us make our statewide field effort a big success. He also lobbied with us to pass the bill creating Harvey Milk Day. Without his advocacy efforts and his historic screenplay Milk, we're sure the Governor would never have signed the bill.
We did let Black know that Perez Hilton might be attending the event as a guest of the Osbornes out of courtesy, as we know that there is tension between them (of which the Osbornes were not aware). Hilton was also on the media lists for other organizations' Harvey Milk Day events. We would never disinvite anyone from our events, and our Harvey Milk Day events were open to the press. Hilton did not attend the event. We did let Black know that Hilton wasn't coming, and he sent me a text saying that he didn't think he could make it to the event before it ended.
We would never disinvite someone from an event who has done as much for the LGBT community as Black has. We're incredibly impressed with Black's advocacy for LGBT rights and hope to continue working with him in the future. He is a great champion for our community.
Harvey Milk Day is now over, but we must keep ourselves focused on the real work at hand: moving people to support marriage equality, electing 100% pro-equality candidates and passing legislation to secure LGBT rights."
