I felt pride and good fortune running into Lieutenant Dan Choi at the 17th St. Plaza in San Francisco's Castro district today. He is the famous Iraq War Army veteran who came out as a gay man on Rachel Maddow's show and publicly challenging "Don't Ask Don't Tell" was discharged. He even handcuffed himself to the White House fence in protest and was arrested along with officer Capt Jim Pietrangelo. He also gave Harry Reid his West Point ring insisting it could only be returned when the offensive law was repealed. I didn't thing to ask if he had it back yet. My friend Elliott, a straight man learning about our community, who was getting my informal tour of the area, thought to get these photos. We chatted about the importance of not only coming out personally but also as a community. I told him I thought it was great that the historic Muni Streetcars were bringing tourist to our neighborhood and letting them see us, not as the monsters and child molesters they were led to believe we were by the religous bigots. I thanked him for all the leadership he's done and he said there was more good news this morning both from the President and locally about marriage equality. Then he was on his way. There's a good bio of him on Wikipedia
here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Choi
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| My friend Elliott Isenberg |
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