Dan Choi: Hope Is Not a Strategy for Ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

by Michael Jones · 2010-03-18 13:26:00 UTC
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Dan ChoiTalk about a day of action. First came the blogswarm to call for Rep. Nancy Pelosi to send the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) to a vote on the U.S. House floor.  Meanwhile, down at Freedom Plaza, another type of swarm was brewing -- a direct action led by Lt. Dan Choi, to take President Obama and Congress to task for moving like a day-old bowl of Cream of Wheat when it comes to repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Indeed, Lt. Choi wins the award for improviser of the week, one-upping Kathy Griffin, who was speaking at a Human Rights Campaign press conference calling for a repeal of DADT. After Griffin spoke, she invited Lt. Choi up to the podium, where he gave some eloquent remarks about why repealing DADT is urgent business.

"What I was taught at West Point and learned in war is -- hope is not a strategy. As officers ... I find it a dereliction of our moral duty to remain silent while thousands of our brothers and sister are not allowed to serve openly and honestly," Lt. Choi said. Then he and another member of the U.S. military, Capt. Jim Pietrangelo, led an unplanned march from Freedom Plaza to the White House, where Choi and Pietrangelo were chained to a fence, and subsequently arrested.

Ah, civil disobedience. As someone who engaged in and watched a good chunk of it in 2003 during the anti-war protests around Iraq, it's heart-warming to see the LGBT rights movement finally going back to its roots. And it's not over yet.

Cue some video footage of Kip Williams and several other activists with GetEqual who this afternoon staged a nonviolent sit-in inside Rep. Nancy Pelosi's office. Why?  Well, to make this blog post full circle, to tell Rep. Pelosi that it's time to move ENDA to the floor of the U.S. House for a vote.

Check out video of Kip Williams and GetEQUAL after the jump. You can also check out video of Lt. Dan Choi's arrest (also from GetEQUAL). Anyone else reminded of Clarence Darrow's famous words: "As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever." Here's to a day of direct action where DADT took one step closer to death, and the cry for passing ENDA was heard loud and clear by policymakers.



Photo credit: joe.my.god

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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