Harvey Milk Boulevard would be renamed for Charlie Kirk under Utah legislation

Under a bill introduced last week in the Utah Legislature, Harvey Milk’s name would be removed from a Salt Lake City street and replaced by Charlie Kirk’s.

The proposal, HB 196, is spearheaded by state Rep. Trevor Lee, who sponsored a bill last year that banned Pride flags from schools and local government buildings.

Lee, a first-term Republican, does not represent the city where a 2-mile stretch of the street 900 South was renamed 10 years ago to honor Milk, a San Francisco supervisor and activist for LGBTQ rights who was killed in 1978.

In June of last year, when Milk’s name was removed from a Navy ship, Lee said he would sponsor legislation to do the same for Salt Lake City’s Harvey Milk Boulevard. He told a Utah TV station that Milk had “no relevance to Utah” and that the street’s name was part of an activist agenda that “most people don’t like.”

After Kirk was slain in September, Lee said the bill would specify the street be renamed for the right-wing activist. To do so, it would amend Utah’s rules concerning the naming of streets under a city’s jurisdiction.

In the few days after the bill was introduced, more than 140 property owners and residents along Harvey Milk Boulevard signed a petition opposing the renaming, the Salt Lake Tribune said on Tuesday.

While running for the Utah House of Representatives in 2022, the Tribune said, Lee was rebuked by the state’s Republican leadership for a Twitter account in which he attacked women and LGBTQ people and frequently used the hashtag #DezNat — referring to the Deseret Nationalist movement, known for extreme right-wing views.

Lee was picked by county GOP delegates as the candidate for the seat that had been held since 2010 by fellow Republican Stephen Handy. Running as a write-in candidate, Handy lost the 2022 primary.