School board president faces backlash for calling Harvey Milk a ‘pedophile’

San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, left, and Mayor George Moscone during the April 1977 signing of the city’s gay rights bill. They were both assassinated in 1978. Photograph: AP

The president of the Temecula school board in California is facing a backlash from educators, parents and state officials after calling gay rights activist Harvey Milk a “pedophile”.

At the school board’s 16 May meeting, the board president, Joseph Komrosky, objected to an elementary social science curriculum that included Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, in its supplemental materials. “My question is, why even mention a pedophile?” Komrosky said, echoing a conspiracy theory that falsely accuses gay people of molesting children at higher rates than heterosexual people. When meeting attendees protested that Milk was not a pedophile, Komrosky said: “I beg to differ.”