According to reports, 100 protesters were standing around, chanting. And tweeting. About how the MSM was ignoring the protest.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that 102 protesters handcuffed to the white house press would have been more than enough to get the MSM involved.

Had I the financial wherewithal, my first stop pre-protest would have been a snazzy leather shop near Dupont Circle for a pair of handcuffs or 5. Something difficult to undo.

btw they were arrested about an hour ago, Dan.

BC, every cop has a handcuff key (little known fact: they're standardized). It's not difficult to undo at all.

I was there (100 is a pretty good estimate). The march to the White House seemed pretty spontaneous (though I'm sure Dan planned it). I'd say there were about 500 people at the main event with Kathy Griffin at Freedom Plaza, before the smaller group marched to the White House from there.

@4: Hence the classy leather straps!

Good for Lt. Choi for getting aggressive.

I salute both of these courageous men. The story also confirms what I've been slow to realize; that HRC is pretty much a worthless organization. I recently stopped my financial support, and removed their sticker from my car bumper.

To quote someone from the JMG blog:

"This is what patriotism looks like."

Good for Choi. I like Kathy Griiffin a lot, but she is seriously not the right person to be talking about DADT. The HRC messed up big time. The only joke around today is the HRC.

The HRC is actively campaigning AGAINST gay rights now? How clever of them.

5280, it is if you glob some glue in the keyhole.

@10

Everyone should be talking about it. She is big supporter of our troops, so I understand why she would be doing this.

@1 - so, basically, 5 times as many people showed up to protest DADT than showed up to protest the Health Care Bill ...

Pretty nifty!

Yep, that would do it alright, Fnarf.

@9 No. that's what selfishness looks like.

This nation is facing way more important issues for all it's citizens right now that the demands of some to be making public statement about their private lives. That's not even stating how obviously wrong it is for this to be talked about when we have troops in two war zones.

LC you're a traitor, how dare you criticize our troops.

More importantly WTF!?! why would the HRC not want Lt. Dan Choi to speak? Am I missing something here? Isn't he currently the leading voice of the DADT movement? Kathy Griiffin? Could the HRC possibly be more incompetent?

Loveschild - Its always the right time to fight for equality and decry injustice. It's never selfish to speak for the greater good. What's selfish is wanting people that you don't agree with to shut up.

STFU, Loveschild. You don't have a horse in this race. Your need for self-flagellation in the comments section is getting tiresome.

Die, Loveschild, die.

The more important issues this nation is facing have to do with injustice and inequality. The selfish are those that want to keep the status quo. The selfish are those that believe separate is equal. Betcha didn't know that Biblical word for righteousness means to eliminate injustice, to establish equality, to remove anything that blocks and impedes compassion. To sacrifice oneself for the purpose of obtaining justice and equality for all is noble and righteous.

Loveschild, you don't have to die. You serve a purpose in this forum, as a hard-headed example of the silly, self-serving arguments that people can come up with when they are determined to keep their minds closed, no matter what evidence may come along that they are just so completely wrong.

It does everyone good to hear both sides: right, good, honest, and fair; and completely, utterly, dismally, pathetically wrong.

I am also going to keep the HRC sticker on my car, for now, as a reminder of how far we need yet to go. Also, vanilla folks think HRC is really "out there", so they have that going for them. But they get no more money from me. The time for kid gloves is long past.

Loveschild - Botching up creating "democracy" in other countries is more important than providing civil rights for your own fellow citizens? Fuck, your priorities suck.

"completely, utterly, dismally, pathetically wrong."

You forgot hateful, bigoted, ignorant, false, homophobic, malicious, uninformed, cretinous... No, on balance I think the world would be better without the likes of Loveschild.

@20 This is my nation, it's security and future well being is of my concern. So I do have a "horse in this race", as is.

If a small group of people ( whomever they may be ) are gonna be making controversial demands while in uniform that could end up endangering our troops in the battle front and while the whole nation is debating more pressing issues that affects us all, like bankrupcy and health care ( regardless of whom we go to bed with ), then the citizenry has a right to reject such actions to defend all of our brave military personnel and to keep focus on what's truly important for our nation's future.

@25 - I'm sorry, but we're revoking your citizenship and you're now a citizen of the Papal See.

26, if she actually is a woman, they don't want her pussying up their sausage-fest.

@27: I can assure you that's not a concern.

I'm so happy to see someone like Dan Choi exposing HRC's activism as the farce it is. I love Kathy Griffin, but for fuck's sake. She's who they want to take to congress? While they won't even give Dan a moment at the mic? They might as well take out an ad stating that they're not really serious about accomplishing anything on this issue. It makes me more glad than ever that I stopped donating to them. What a waste.

Hmm. Well, if he's black they won't want him darkying up their white-fest then.

It is a little embarrassing when people call Dan a hero for doing this. Sure he is a bit of a hero but lets put it in perspective. It is pretty damn easy to be peacefully arrested when you have a crowd cheering and clapping for you. The real heros are the ones who go through great hardship for the cause. I don't want to be to divisive in this issue but it seems that it is really easy to be an armchair activist and then just run when the going gets rough. I don't think Dan Choi is that kind of person but lets give credit where credit is due.

@31, Lt. Choi is a war veteran who chose to come out on national television, opening himself up to abuse, harassment, and the potential (now imminent) end of his career. How much "hardship" does he need to endure before he gets your approval?

@25: I just love how you think that allowing highly trained and competent individuals (some really good personnel are gay) to remain in the forces is going to endanger troops.
What, are troopers going to go all gay panic and refuse to advance on a building because the guy giving them covering fire also likes to give head? Soldiers are going to flip their lids because their commanding officer doesn't like girls that way?
You are a small, dry-roasted nut, Loveschild, and a cuntwhorebitch to boot. Ah yes, it feels good to go there again.

@30: Also not a concern.

@clearlyhere - Speaking about it, yes. Making jokes about it in her shows, yes. BUT being the HRC's main choice of spokesperson at a Washington DC rally....no fucking way. I seriously do like her, but there are some issues where there are more appropriate people.

Kim,

I'm not religious but I absolute love you for pointing out what Christianity is supposed to be about. I think LC missed the love your enemy part.

Loveschild@25 said, "This is my nation, it's security and future well being is of my concern."

What you fail to recognize, Loveschild, is that other people call this their nation as well. It's not as though you're the only person who lives here. And you've never explained why allowing homosexuals to serve in the military--or, for that matter, to simply live their lives--is a threat to you or to this nation. Or, for that matter, to any nation. Vague dictatorial pronouncements do not qualify as reasons.

LC @25: "...controversial demands while in uniform that could end up endangering our troops in the battle front..."

Again, LC does not make specific claims, so they are impossible to refute. Maybe we should abandon rational argument on our side because she clearly refuses to play by the rules of logic.

I'd like to make some non-specific, untestable accusatory statements too. Here goes: the things that LC keeps under her bed could end up causing the deaths of many little babies in the Third World.

What things? I can't tell you. They are too terrible to name.

Dearest Kim,

Please keep on rocking.

http://gay.americablog.com/2010/03/where…

I haven't been following every minute of this Dan Choi business, but as far as I know he came out very publically. Why is it that, for example, that woman whose marriage certificate was 'found' by a policeman and reported to the airforce immediately lost her job, but Dan Choi still has his? I know that he is probably about to lose it, but I'm just wondering why it didn't happen immediately. Anyone know?

Listen up SLOGgers:

The day LC comes out as a big ol' relieved rugmuncher, the first round's on me. I'm even starting a fund, cos this could get spendy.

25, Lovechild, it's gay people's nation too. Do you really not get that?

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others."
Frederick Douglass gave on August 4, 1857 speech about the emancipation of West India.

Douglass's oration has proved true over time, through the Civil War, through Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, and now in today's civil rights movement across the nation and the globe. Did you know that the Biblical word for 'bandit', a title given to Jesus of Nazareth in the Jewish Antiquities and Jewish Wars (in addition to those crucified along side of him) means 'freedom fighter' in Greek. That same spirit is alive and well today: in Dan Choi and Jim Pietrangelo, the ENDA blogswarm and sit-ins, the struggle for healthcare, in the state of New York where the push for marriage equality lives on, across the ocean in Queensland, AUS where there is a marriage equality rally (today according to the blog I read) despite just having the marriage equality bill voted down.

To quote Douglass again, " Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both." I'm hoping with words, votes, and activist legislatures and judges will be sufficient to end injustice. Till then we will strive for all people, we will be freedom fighters, because there is only one race of humans: homo sapiens sapiens.

No, not selfish at all.

@motobourbon and @ Very Bad Homo, thanks.

@15 You know who else was selfish, LC? Rosa Parks. Lazy bitch wouldn't move and give whitey his seat. So self-centred...

Alleged @49, the inability of the peacekeeping force to stop what happened was due to rules of engagement.

Uh, yeah. The Dutch are fucking pissed at Sheehan: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62…

We have laws in America that prohibit the firing of someone over their sexuality. The American Military has, already in place, anti-fraternization rules. The only debate here is why the Military should be exempt from the rules everyone else in government have to abide. Several other nations, nations America calls allies, have out gay soldiers and are still able to complete military operations. There never was a need for DADT, and there certainly isn't this late in the game. It is hogwash to suggest that openly serving gay men and women will further endanger our troops. In case you haven't been out in the field of active combat, nobody asks "before I shoot, are you gay, a religion i find offensive, or hold any of these values that repulse me? I don't want to kill my brother in arms on the other side of the conflict." War is war; it's shoot to kill and too ugly for a made for TV feel good special. I don't believe LoveChild or anyone of that ilk truly wants to replace Lt Choi and the other wrongfully discharged vets on the field (nor do i think LoveChild or anyone of that ilk is even competent/capable enough to do so). Since they don't have a replacement who is already trained and ready to fight for this nation we call America, maybe we should let the gay soldiers do the job they like to do: serving this nation.

@53 Actually, you are wrong. We don't have laws in this country that prevent firing someone because of their sexual orientation. That is a totally different fight. Google: ENDA