Former US Army lieutenant Dan Choi, who became the face of the movement to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, has been fined $100 for chaining himself to the White House in 2010.
Choi, who was discharged from the Army after coming out on the Rachel Maddow Show, faced up to six months in federal prison for his actions. (Others who participated in the demonstration pleaded guilty.) He will not face any prison time if he pays the fine.
Choi represented himself at trial, though it’s hardly his first time facing legal headaches: In December a Superior Court judge dismissed charges against Choi relating to his participation in White House demonstration against the Keystone XL Pipeline. And in 2011, Choi was among a number of international activists arrested for holding a Moscow Pride event despite a ban by the city government.
That same year military police wrestled Choi to the ground before handcuffing him, threatening to charge him with resisting arrest and eventually kicking him off Fort Meade when he tried to attend accused Wikileaker Bradley Manning’s hearing.
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Cam
Counting down to all the HRC folks coming in here and attacking Choi for daring to protest for marriage when they were busy throwing parties and begging the folks in the Prop 8 case NOT to file because it might upset people.
balehead
The HRC will take all of the credit of course….but Choi is still a media ho…
Cam
@balehead:
So lets see, he got the cause attention, made friends with the reporters so that they stopped running to Maggie Gallagher and all of the anti-gay folks every time a gay story came up, sacrificed his job, and the while making about 6 or 7 times less money than a large number of HRC employees.
The bigots in Mississippi claimed that the poor girl who just wanted to go to prom with her girlfriend was also an “Attention Ho”.
Frankly gay rights could use a few more people like those two.
2eo
But he didn’t hold a society dinner, to the HRC he might as well be Hitler.
gppm1103
It’s unfortunate, but the HRC has turned into a celebrity bash rather than an organization to advance gay rights.
It didn’t take long before they got around to handing out awards to celebrities. Where are the awards to the regular people who do the work?
GLAAD is worse.
The head of the AIDS Foundation in San Francisco was making $500,000 years ago. You can bet GLAAD and HRC heads are right up there as well.
brokeback gypsy
I have very little, but I would like to personally pay his fine. It takes all kinds of activists for us to finally obtain all equal rights that we deserve. You go Dan!
bmwblonde
What is both predictable and disappointing about nearly all “charities” (and nearly all squeaky-clean and new “spiritual” movements) is that they quickly get “organized” – i.e., into bureaucracies. And the archetypal truth about ALL bureaucracies is that the ONLY that they do well is to perpetuate themselves. Thus we see the national cancer “charity” utterly suppressing real cancer cures and injecting tons of complicated politics into science (combated by even older bureaucracies – the Tabacco industry, the AMA, Big Pharma). Such bureaucracies NEED one another, to distract from the fact they are ONLY perpetuating themselves but not achieving their originally stated mission.
SO, are we “shocked, shocked, shocked” that major pro-Gay organizations turn into self-serving bureaucracies with overpaid chiefs (hired because only they are good at “combatting” other bureaucracies) – with the result that all the bureaucracies PERPETUATE themselves. Any part of the original mission that gets fulfilled is largely a side-effect (or even an accident). This just IS. We need to all work with our actions and our lives, to make total equality an inexorable destiny. I just IGNORE all the bureaucratic advocacy (and anti-advocacy) organizations, because they are doing THEIR OWN THING (which is: “2, 4, 6, 8 — let’s continue to SELF-PERPETUATE.”
Hence we can’t be “shocked, shocked, shocked” when such a bureaucratic “advocacy” organization gets in the way of progress. Well, duh. For them, “progress” isn’t the mission, self-perpetuation IS. Human nature is basically good; but humans doing stuff in groups has a VERY lousy track record. Ciao
FStratford
@balehead:
Media Ho? is that how you appreciate someone who risked his life and employment to publicize the injustice against gays like us?
I guess, there are uncle toms in the gay movement. And I meant you!
Cam
@FStratford:
So true, Joe Solomnase took the mid 6 figure salary HRC was paying him, not including free travel and suits, and told gays to sit down and shut up because we shouldn’t upset our “Friends” in Congress. And that it was ok that they didn’t vote for gay rights because that was unpopular and our “Friends” winning elections was more important than gay rights because they really liked us, but they just couldn’t vote for us.
In fact he was SO supportive of gay rights, that when DADT repeal was being argued in Congress Solomnase decided to leave the country and take a trip to Europe.
Yeah, that is who HRC said was fighting for our rights.
Cam
@brokeback gypsy:
What a great post!
Raquel Santiago
@balehead: While the HRC does “Some” good things, lately they have been more intersted in partying than doing what they were intended to do. Just writing a letter is not advocacy.