(Sacramento, California)  Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed a bill honoring slain LGBT civil rights pioneer Harvey Milk by marking his birthday.

It passed the legislature with little difficulty, but the governor in vetoing the bill said that, while he respected the measure’s intent, he thinks Milk’s “contributions should continue to be recognized at the local level.”

May 22 is Milk’s birth date. He would have been 78 this year.

Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977 and shot to death a year later, along with Mayor George Moscone, by fellow supervisor Dan White.

White was convicted of manslaughter, and served a little more than three years in prison before committing suicide.

In the years since his death, Milk has become the most recognizable martyr of the gay rights movement.

Leno said the legislation was written to have no additional impact on the budget, and state workers and school employees would not get the day off from work.

Nevertheless, Republicans and other social conservatives mounted an intensive campaign against it.

In May, a bronze bust of Milk was unveiled at San Francisco City Hall. The bronze sculpture sits atop a stone base inscribed with a quote from one of his most famous speeches.

There already is a sculpture of Moscone outside San Francisco’s City Hall.

Milk has been immortalized in the film “The Life and Times of Harvey Milk”, and a second film, a dramatization of Milk’s life starring Sean Penn and directed by Gus Van Sant, will be released next month.