SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Harvey Milk was assassinated a quarter century ago, yet his legacy of public service as an openly gay man remains very much alive for a community still hungry for heroes.

The anniversary of Nov. 27, 1978 — the day Milk, one of the nation’s first openly gay elected officials, and Mayor George Moscone were gunned down — has inspired panel discussions, a museum exhibit and a memorial march. A song based on Milk’s speeches will have its debut on the steps outside City Hall, where the men lost their lives.

The occasion has provided a timely barometer for people who see Milk as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. of the gay civil rights movement. Indeed, while a Massachusetts court’s decision this month to allow same-sex couples to wed competes with a proposed Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages, the unabashedly pro-gay face that Milk presented to the world is a vivid touchstone.

“Harvey remains a symbol of what’s possible,” said director Robert Epstein, who is preparing a 25th anniversary DVD edition of The Times of Harvey Milk, the 1984 documentary that won an Academy Award. “His most basic message was for gay people to come out and that change can only happen when we make change within ourselves.”

Milk would be 73 — an aging pioneer instead of a modern gay martyr whose charisma, sense of humor and determination not to mask his sexual orientation made him a natural leader. Despite receiving death threats during his four political campaigns, Milk attended his swearing-in as city supervisor with a male lover on his arm.

Milk had been in office less than a year when fellow supervisor Dan White, a former police officer, smuggled a gun into City Hall. Days earlier, White had resigned from the board and he blamed Milk and Moscone when the mayor refused to reappoint him. White shot both men multiple times.

White argued that junk food fueled his rampage. His now infamous “Twinkie defense,” supported by a psychiatrist, worked. Instead of murder, White was convicted of manslaughter.

Thousands took to the streets in protest. White served a little more than three years in prison, then committed suicide. Harry Britt, a gay activist, replaced Milk; Moscone was replaced by Dianne Feinstein, who now is one of California’s senators.

But the story didn’t end there for the many gay men and lesbians who regarded Milk as an icon. Eventually, he would be eulogized in a Broadway play, a one-man characterization, a made-for-TV movie, a tragic-comic opera and a children’s book. The Harvey Milk School in New York City is the nation’s first public high school for gays, bisexuals and transgender students.

Today, his name is invoked as a symbol of both the gains made by gay men and lesbians and their continuing struggle for equality.

“Coming out is still a hard process. There are still people in my family I’m not out to,” said Justina Cross, among the hundreds who marched through Milk’s beloved Castro district in his memory this week. Milk died two years before she was born, she said, and yet, “There is so much to fight for still.”

Compared to those of other historic figures, Milk’s legend has remained mostly intact. Milk’s short time in office and his refusal to sanitize his personal life have meant few revelations since the publication of “The Mayor of Castro Street,” Randy Shilts’ definitive 1982 biography.

“It’s just really now that some people are beginning to go back and re-examine the Harvey Milk myth,” said Susan Stryker, director of the International Museum of GLBT History.

The museum’s inaugural exhibit is “Saint Harvey: The Life and Afterlife of a Modern Gay Martyr,” which includes the bloodstained suit Milk was wearing when he was killed. From the feedback she’s gotten, Stryker concluded that many gays make a connection between Milk’s fate and the discrimination they face.

“They identify with the violence he experienced and want to transform it into something significant rather than something meaningless,” she said.

The Metropolitan Community Church gave a posthumous award to Milk at its annual November fundraiser, and during the celebration the transvestite mistress of ceremonies read mock headlines, fast-forwarding to where some of the night’s VIPS would be in another 25 years.

One headline told of Assemblyman Mark Leno, who last year fulfilled Milk’s dream of becoming one of the first gay men to serve in the California Legislature, being elected president.

Harvey, his friends agreed, would have loved it.