Log Cabin Blasts HRC's Move to Milk's Store

Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and the San Francisco's gay Republicans are outraged that the Human Rights Campaign will set up shop at the site of gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk's Castro Camera.

The HRC is scheduled to move its San Francisco Action Center to the former site of Castro Camera, where Milk launched his political career and grassroots projects.

"Harvey Milk spent the last years of his life fighting not only for rights for gays and lesbians across the nation, but also against the idea that the only way to achieve those rights is to lobby the government and financially support so-called straight allies," said Black, who wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for the film Milk. In a statement, he added, "For the HRC leadership, which still advocates a piecemeal, wait-and-see approach, to try and co-opt and profit from Harvey's legacy is an outrage."

Dan Brown, the president of Log Cabin Republicans of San Francisco, also said in a statement Wednesday that the HRC is biased against GOP candidates and raises money only for Democrats.

"Harvey Milk supported both Republican and Democratic candidates throughout his life, and continually sought to reach consensus on both sides of the aisle for the benefit of us all," Brown said in a statement

HRC president Joe Solmonese said Milk's work inspired his organization.

"We are the beneficiaries of his groundbreaking activism and are honored to be a part of the future that he envisioned," he said, according to the San Francisco Examiner on Monday.

Black is not affiliated with the Log Cabin Republicans but did help the organization in its Republicans Against 8 campaign in 2008.