Though "Milk" is based on gay activist Harvey Milk’s life in 1970s San Francisco, the movie mentions Minnesota a number of times.

There’s the call from a gay teen in Minnesota who is contemplating suicide because his parents plan to commit him the next day. Milk, who became the nation’s first openly gay person elected to a major office, tells the boy to get on the next bus out of town. The kid says he can’t because he’s in a wheelchair. Even so, the next time we hear from the Minnesotan he’s an activist and telephoning Milk that Los Angeles County voters have rejected an anti-gay proposition in California.

After a few online searches, I still have no idea whether the teen was based on a real person (do any readers know?) or just a fictional character to show how young gays from across the nation reached out to Milk in turbulent times.  

But this next Minnesota mention got my attention because I’d always thought the state was more progressive than others when it came to gay rights: archival footage of CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite announcing that on April 25, 1978, voters in "St. Paul, Minnesota" had repealed a 1974 city human rights ordinance protecting gays and lesbians. And here's an interesting tidbit from gaydemographics.org: Nick Coleman (the late Minnesota lawmaker -- not his son the columnist) was one of the activists behind the progressive 1974 ordinance. I lived in Texas during the 1970s, so I missed this Minnesota chapter in gay rights.

I’m also a bit late in seeing the movie (released in late November), but I found the use of archival footage from the 1970s an effective way to tell Harvey Milk’s compelling story.

Here’s what a 70-something friend said after we saw the movie Sunday: "To me it filled in the blanks in history that I either forgot or didn’t know." Plus, she said, "It’s just a pleasure to see Sean Penn (who portrays Milk) because he’s such an incredible actor." 

Readers: What did you think of "Milk"?