Bad Lieutenant, Dan Choi

[metta]

Bad Lieutenant, Dan Choi

Everyone, he says, is "happy to send out e-mails when a good court case comes out, but no one is willing to take a risk for fear of taking blame. If people want to blame me for being the reason 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' isn't repealed, I say fine. Bring it on, motherfuckers."

Lieutenant Dan Choi personifies the growing rift between gay-rights activists who want to cooperate with lobbyists and elected officials, and those who demand direct action. It's pretty obvious that the establishment activists—having allies controlling the White House and the Congress for two years with little to show for it—are having a hard time keeping people like Choi in line.

his fellow activists jittery. "They keep saying, 'Don't say anything bad about Obama, or you're going to end up with Sarah Palin as president!' " He resents what he considers a Hobson's choice—Obama or nothing—because he says it lets the Democrats off the hook. To Choi, that scare tactic of trotting out the likes of Palin just shows that the Democrats "can wield fear just as well as a political weapon as the Republicans!"

He butts heads with activists on the most local of levels. When organizers in Maine didn't want him going door-to-door on behalf of gay marriage because they'd "done a poll, and Mainers only trust eighth-generation Mainers," Choi says, he thought, "That's a very subtle way of saying 'No Asians.' "

But more than his race or his open sexuality, it is perhaps Choi's outspoken militancy on political issues that scares the gay-rights movement. To tightly scripted organizations like the Human Rights Campaign, "I am destabilizing," he openly admits. "And it freaks the shit out of people when I tell young activists and soon-to-be activists that they have the power, and they owe nothing" to groups like HRC or the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. (Neither responded to questions specifically about Choi.)

Now that Choi has stepped into the spotlight, he's not about to give it up—no matter how uncomfortably hot it gets.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-10-27/news/bad-lieutenant-dan-choi/

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

you mean dan isn't as easily seduced by pillow talk as the voting public is? weird.

 

[fetaby]

Good. ..........

 

[doetim]

"But more than his race or his open sexuality, it is perhaps Choi's outspoken militancy on political issues that scares the gay-rights movement."

Why would him being Asian scare the gay rights movement?

 

[doetim]

More important why would his "open sexuality" scare the gay rights movement? Is it more effective fighting for gay rights being in the closet?

 

[VenomGGXX]

I hope he burns up in the spotlight. He is a sexy guy but what he said was so out of line I can never support him

 

[VenomGGXX]

He deserves all the backlash he's getting. He's setting us back, not pushing us forward. You don't create change with threats and non-diplomacy. He should know that. What a fool

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

He deserves all the backlash he's getting. He's setting us back, not pushing us forward. You don't create change with threats and non-diplomacy. He should know that. What a fool

I have to disagree. Diplomacy alone can't claim credit for all of history's advances. Sometimes it takes everything from protest to rioting, hell it took a war just for people to agree that we shouldn't live in chains. Diplomacy didn't free the slaves, Harriet Tubman did with her shotgun.

 

[VenomGGXX]

I have to disagree. Diplomacy alone can't claim credit for all of history's advances. Sometimes it takes everything from protest to rioting, hell it took a war just for people to agree that we shouldn't live in chains. Diplomacy didn't free the slaves, Harriet Tubman did with her shotgun.

I'm not talking about harriet Tubman or Slavery. I'm talking about DADT and how Dan Choi thinks his militant, angry homosexual attitude will persuade straight voters to want Gays to have rights. Ghandi and Martin Luther King knew this, why doesn't Dan Choi????

 

[doetim]

He deserves all the backlash he's getting. He's setting us back, not pushing us forward. You don't create change with threats and non-diplomacy. He should know that. What a fool

What are his threats? I didn't read anything about him making any threats. Sure he's aggressive but he's just really fed up and like it or not he represents a lot of gay people with his resentment, anger and bitterness. We have to ask ourselves who's responsible for all the leaping changes we've seen in the gay rights movement so far, is it the people who are diplomatic or the more angry take matters into your own hand type of activists. I don't think we can definitively say one group over the other because you can't prove either way so I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss his approach or behavior.

 

[lunarus]

He deserves all the backlash he's getting. He's setting us back, not pushing us forward. You don't create change with threats and non-diplomacy. He should know that. What a fool

Yes because we have gotten so far being diplomatic with our own government. And we should all just sit down and shut the fuck up and let our precious politicians do their job, because we all know they know what is best for us...

{/sarcasm}

He is pissed at all the lip service from all these idiots we elect.

Good for him! How is he setting us back? What are we suppose to be the shrinking violets so many see us as? Fuck that! I for one have been fed up with the politicians saying one thing and doing something completely different.

It has gotten to be where I no longer want to vote for the lesser of the two evils. What kind of BS is that!?!

I have said it time and time again, we will NEVER get anywhere by waiting for these ass hats to do their jobs when they clearly do not care one bit about us once they are if office.

Both Dem and Rep have lost my respect. And no I really do give a flying fuck in a grave yard if one side is more gay friendly than the other. It doesn't matter when they clearly can or will not support the people they court to garner a win...

 

[roadtripboy]

Good for him.

I think we need people from both groups. We need people who know how to work the system. (That's people who REALLY know how to work the system. Not the HRC...they have proven themselves to be out of touch.)

We also need people who are in your face. Having both makes it impossible for people to forget that we're here.

 

[VenomGGXX]

Ghandi went on a hunger strike(among other things) to spite the English and MLK openly defied social norms to lend his voice to Americans who thought like him. Neither one had an easy road. And i don't see you mad over Malcolm X being militant - and he worked to do the SAME THING MLK did; hell, they even met and discussed their ways of doing things.

You need to stop talking, and open up a few history books; you might become more informed.

Well if first you're able to get over yourself and your racist, homophobic views on Choi.

First of all, I'm not a racist, or homophobic. I just don't like, or agree with Dan Choi, and his ''outspoken behavior,'' along with many other gay supporters who are fighting for thier rights. Did you even read the first post?? I already had history class, so ''opening up a book,'' has nothing to do with my opinion on the man. Martin Luther King didn't agree with some of Malcom X's behavior and Ghandi was always a supporter of peace over violence. Once again you twist my words to fit your own viewpoint, and insult me personally as well. Still fucking sad