Remembering Oliver Sipple, Too.

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With the passing of Gerald Ford, it's worth recalling the man who, in 1975, saved the then-president when Sara Jane Moore (not the other would-be Ford assassin, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, as I originally misstated), aimed a gun at him. The late Oliver "Billy" Sipple:

had served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, where he was wounded twice.... While [openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey] Milk and Sipple's friends in San Francisco knew he was gay, his family did not. Following the press report his mother disowned him.

Some have noted that the adulation initially given to the ex-Marine "hero who saved the president" cooled off noticeably following reports that he was a gay man.

More. Sipple's story, in the Washington Post.

8 Comments for “Remembering Oliver Sipple, Too.”

  1. posted by Ted B. (Charging Rhino) on

    That it was Harvey Milk who “outed” Oliver Sipple has always clouded my opinion of Milk. I have always thought that Milk was wrong in doing-so, and that negative publicity then directed at Sipple effectively ruined Sipple’s life. Milk sacrificed Sipple’s privacy in an attempt to prove some “poloitical” point…it was wrong then, and it should still be wrong now.

  2. posted by Audrey B. on

    The reward of a thankful nation, no doubt. Wata go Harvey.

  3. posted by Northeast Libertarian on

    Blaming Milk is absolutely ridiculous. The people who should be blamed are the people who actually harmed Sipple — the homophobes in society.

    It’s like blaming a victim for a lynching — “if people hadn’t known he was black, the KKK wouldn’t have been ‘forced’ to lynch him.”

  4. posted by Michael on

    It wasn’t Squeaky Fromme’s assasination attempt that Oliver Sipple thwarted – it was Sara Jane Moore’s. If you’re going to eulogize this man now don’t trivialize his life with incorrect information.

  5. posted by North Dallas Thirty on

    It’s like blaming a victim for a lynching — “if people hadn’t known he was black, the KKK wouldn’t have been ‘forced’ to lynch him.”

    Of course, what NL leaves out is that Oliver Sipple didn’t seem to have trouble with homophobes in society until Harvey Milk decided to prostitute his actions for Milk’s political gain.

    Thus, what Harvey Milk did is more akin to holding a press conference and calling the KKK and telling them there’s a black family there with which they should deal.

    The fact that a gay man’s sexual orientation was used by a gay politician for personal gain is bad enough. The fact that his doing so is actually supported by so-called “libertarians” is downright appalling.

  6. posted by Randy on

    Apparently, though, Ford was grateful to Sipple for the rest of his life, sending him a Christmas card each year. Ford, unlike others, didn’t seem much to care that they man who saved his life was gay.

  7. posted by raj on

    Northeast Libertarian | December 30, 2006, 5:09pm |

    Blaming Milk is absolutely ridiculous. The people who should be blamed are the people who actually harmed Sipple — the homophobes in society.

    Just how stupid can you be? This is what is known as a rhetorical question.

    Let’s understand something. Harvey Milk outed Sipple to the public for Milk’s own political purposes. And Milk did so apparently without even consulting him. And, as far as anyone can tell, Sipple had not previously done anything that would have damaged the cause of equal rights for gay people, so as far as I’m concerned outing him without his permission is unforgiveable. Outing someone who has or is in the process of damaging the cause of equal rights for gay people is another issue for another time.

    Let’s understand something else. Nobody knows what might have happened to Sipple if Milk had not outed Sipple to the public. Sipple might well have suffered the same or a similar fate if he had not been outed. Or he might not have. Who knows? But that imponderable does not derogate from the apparent harm that Milk actually did by outing him to the public.

  8. posted by dalea91505 on

    What makes this even more convoluted is that Sipple was out locally, in SF, but not out nationally. Which was not an unusual practice at the time.

    Are you actually sure it was Harvey Milk who outed him. From what I recall at the time, a number of gays wanted to make sure Sipple received full honors for his actions. And to reference the fact that he was gay. AIR a lot of people were involved in this, not just Milk.

    Uhhh, how did outing ‘ruin his life’?

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