CA-10: Dan Choi Endorses Anthony Woods

The President is under fire from the LGBT community for slow-walking their issues and turning away from campaign promises. It's getting a little ugly, and the President risks a lot of goodwill for a community that worked hard to elect him, especially in the wake of several victories on marriage equality in the New England area and Iowa and the historic level of activism after the passage of Prop. 8.

Central to this debate is the issue of gays in the military and the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. Obama keeps insisting that he wants to change the policy, and his nominee for Secretary of the Army, Republican John McHugh, reportedly supports this change as well, saying that he has "no interest as either a Member of Congress or as … secretary of the Army to exclude by some categorization a group of people otherwise qualified to serve.” A recent poll shows overwhelming support for allowing gays and lesbians to openly serve in the military, even among conservatives.

But the President could end this policy today by putting a moratorium on implementing the policy of throwing out qualified Americans from serving in the Armed Forces. Two of those Americans, Iraq war vets Dan Choi and CA-10 candidate Anthony Woods, are teaming up, as Choi announces his endorsement of Woods.

“For 10 years, I have known Anthony Woods as a leader and an officer of the highest caliber,” said Choi. “From defending our nation abroad, to fighting for our highest ideals here at home, Anthony Woods exemplifies the real world perspective that is needed to bring about real change in Washington, and I am proud to support his candidacy for Congress.”

An Arab Linguist, Lieutenant in the New York Army National Guard, and West Point Classmate of Anthony Woods, Choi rose to national prominence earlier this year when he openly declared that he was gay on MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show.” The Army quickly launched discharge proceedings against Choi, who has vowed to fight his termination from the military under the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy,” and re-deploy with his unit.

Like Choi, Woods also served in Iraq, commanding 81 soldiers and earning both the Bronze Star and Army Commendation medal during two tours of duty. Woods was also discharged after challenging the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy, and would be the first openly gay African American ever elected to the United States Congress [...]

Choi will join Woods at two events in Northern California this month---the first on June 26th in Davis, and the second on June 29th in San Francisco.

Obviously, Woods is more than a single issue candidate. But the imagery of someone replacing Ellen Tauscher, who is currently carrying the bill in the House to repeal the DADT policy, who was kicked out of the military using that policy, is undeniable, and can increase pressure on the President and Congress to finally do the sensible thing and remove that layer of discrimination in our armed services.

Obama Needs To Step Up And Help Repeal DADT

I highly recommend this segment on the Rachel Maddow show with Dan Choi, a gay veteran and Arabic linguist now being thrown out of the military after coming out on an earlier Maddow program. This is the system that John McCain considers to be "working well." At a time when the military has been forced to loosen their recruitment guidelines to allow admittance for 42 year-olds and the mentally ill, 13,000 members who want to serve have been discharged because of who they choose to love in their personal lives. It's a needless violation of these men and women's dreams and career goals, an unnecessary intrusion into their lives, and a costly policy that doesn't improve unit cohesion or readiness in any way.

Here's Dan Choi discussing his removal from the Army:

CHOI: Well, when I got the letter, I was extremely angry. I was angry -- I mean, the letter is basically saying bottom line, Lieutenant Dan Choi, you're fired. You're a West Point graduate, you're fired. You're an Arabic linguist, you're fired. You deployed to Iraq, you're willing to deploy again, doesn't matter. Because you're gay, that's enough grounds to kick you out.

But the biggest thing that I'm angry about is what it says about my unit. It says that my unit suffered negative good order -- negative actions -- good order and discipline suffered. That's a big insult to my unit.

I mean, all the insult that the letter can do, to say that I'm worthy of being fired, you know, that's nothing comparing to saying that my unit is not professional enough, that my unit does not deserve to have a leader that is willing to deploy, that has skills to contribute.

Choi plans to fight the policy, an opinion he apparently shares with the President. Yet Obama has shied away from meaningfully committing to overturning the policy. He keeps fussing with the language on his website, advocating not a "repeal" but a "change" of the policy. Plus, he could end implementation of the policy and essentially put a moratorium on all discharges right now until the policy review is completed and Congress takes action. I understand that Obama must be looking at the model of Bill Clinton, who came out for full participation of gays in the military in 1993 and eventually had to accept this policy, and he doesn't want to make the same mistake. But there will never be a "good time" to repeal DADT. At some point, leaders lead, and while Eugene Robinson mainly talks about gay marriage in this piece, the exact same statement could be made about DADT:

Before his inauguration, President Obama called himself a "fierce advocate of equality for gay and lesbian Americans." Now, with the same-sex marriage issue percolating in state after state and with the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy ripe for repeal, it's time for Obama to put some of his political capital where his rhetoric is [...]

It seems to me that equality means equality, and either you're for it or you're not. I believe gay marriage should be legal, and it's hard for me to imagine how any "fierce advocate of equality" could think otherwise.

Obama sensibly advocates the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." He should press the case by publicly reminding opponents of letting gays serve openly in the military that their arguments -- it would hurt morale, damage cohesion and readiness, discourage reenlistment -- are often the same, almost word for word, as the arguments made 60 years ago against racial integration in the armed forces. It was bigotry then, and it's bigotry now.

Obama should also make the obvious case that forcibly discharging capable, fully trained servicemen and servicewomen for being gay, at a time when our overstretched military is fighting two big wars, can only be described as insane.

Congress needs to act to fully repeal DADT, and Rush Holt, among others, have committed to that option. One of them is, interestingly enough, Rep. Joe Sestak, a retired Navy Admiral talking about primarying Arlen Specter in the Senate race in Pennsylvania. While Sestak may be moderate on a few issues, he has always been out front on the issue of DADT repeal.

SESTAK: First, Lieutenant, thanks for your service to our nation. And I think this is indicative of the kind of quality of man and woman that we have lost. Look, I went to war, and we knew by survey that when I went to war that we had a certain percentage in that carrier battle group, and when I was on the ground briefly in Afghanistan, that were gay. And now we come back to America and say they don't have equal rights. I've never understood it. This is something where we have to correct this. It's just not right.

MADDOW: When the president says, Admiral Sestak, when he says that it could be slow going in part because it has to move through Congress -- and again, we know this because he wrote it in a handwritten letter to somebody who is currently being kicked out of the military, as Lieutenant Choi is -- he's essentially saying that Congress will be part of the reason that this needs to go slow. But you're saying that this could actually happen quite quickly.

SESTAK: I think it could, yes. I think the president as commander in chief needs to be the one that says to the military -- and I understand what Secretary Gates said recently about the plate is kind of full -- that's not the Defense Department's decision. This is the commander in chief's decision to say we need to change it, which he has [...]

And I know there's several of us veterans here -- Patrick Murphy, Eric Massa, myself, you know, warriors, veterans, like the lieutenant, that want to, as Ellen Tauscher, who is the primary mover of this, goes off to the State Department, that we can pick it up as co-sponsors, and hopefully rapidly move it. If it's a law, I think we should do it by due process.

Just as fascinating, the aforementioned main sponsor of the bill, Ellen Tauscher, is moving to the State Department, and among the candidates readying themselves to replace her is gay veteran Anthony Woods, who served two tours in Iraq as a platoon leader before coming out to his superiors and being discharged from the military. Woods would rather not be pigeonholed as the gay DADT candidate, and he has much more to offer than that. But clearly he becomes a powerful symbol in this debate, one that the President could end quickly with a little leadership.

Could Obama Stop The Firing Of Gay Military Members?

This talk about a potential gay or lesbian Supreme Court justice bubbled up over the past couple days, leaving us with the perverse dichotomy of allowing a gay or lesbian to preside over the nation's highest court - in fact, thinking it absurd to even question someone's fitness along those lines - but not allowing a gay or lesbian to serve their country as an Arabic linguist.

Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and officer in the Army National Guard who is fluent in Arabic and who returned recently from Iraq, received notice today that the military is about to fire him. Why? Because he came out of the closet as a gay man on national television.

Some readers might think it unfair to blame Obama. After all, the president inherited the "don't ask, don't tell" law when he took office. As Commander-in-Chief, he has to follow the law. If the law says that the military must fire any service member who acknowledges being gay, that is not Obama's fault.

Or is it?

A new study, about to be published by a group of experts in military law, shows that President Obama does, in fact, have stroke-of-the-pen authority to suspend gay discharges. The "don't ask, don't tell" law requires the military to fire anyone found to be gay or lesbian. But there is nothing requiring the military to make such a finding. The president can simply order the military to stop investigating service members' sexuality.

That's a compelling case. Especially considering that there's documentary proof that Obama has expressed his commitment to repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell.

Sandy - Thanks for the wonderful and thoughtful letter. It is because of outstanding Americans like you that I committed to changing our current policy. Although it will take some time to complete (partly because it needs Congressional action) I intend to fulfill my commitment. — Barack Obama.

I get the sense that Obama likes, or is at least comfortable with, the tangle of needing Congressional action. He can claim his hands are tied and until Congress acts, he is powerless. But the above article has another opinion - Obama could block implementation. It would be controversial, to be sure. But leaders don't bow to controversy.