Brody's Notes... Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean Joins Lt. Dan Choi & GetEqual DADT Protest Rally

Lt. Dan Choi Being Interviewed By The Washington Blade's Senior Washington National Affairs Correspondent Lou Chibbaro Jr 

Photo By Brody Levesque

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) May 2 | The former Chairman of the Democratic National Party and  former Governor of Vermont, Howard Dean, joined Lt. Dan Choi and the other activists from Gay Equality Rights groups GetEqual, Queer Rising, and Talk-About-Equality, in a protest rally held across the street from the White House today at noon in Lafayette Park.  

Speaking to the crowd of roughly 150 supporters of repeal, Dean told them that the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin (D-MI);

“[Carl Levin] is a hero because he has the votes to tack on to the Defense authorization bill,” said Dean, “the end of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ That is the right thing to do for America and I want to thank senator Levin for his courage.”

After his impromptu appearance and speech, Dean, when asked by the Advocate's Senior White House correspondent Kerry Eleveld, referring to the letter published Friday by The Washington Post detailing Defence Secretary Gate's caution to the Congress to not push for repeal of DADT until the DOD study and review had been completed, Dean indicated that he felt Levin should push ahead on repeal despite the letter from Gates, Dean said he should as long as he has the votes.

“Sen. Levin’s amendment, in fact, does what the secretary asked for in the secretary’s testimony,” Dean told Eleveld. “There is a schedule for implementation … I think there’s about a year for implementation, so the implementation is gradual, which is what the secretary asked for.”

The majority of speakers and those in attendance were openly seething over the Defence Secretary's letter response to a query last week from the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Ike Skelton, (D-MO) in which the Defence Secretary warned it would be disruptive for congressional action that preempted completion of the study by attaching DADT repeal to the defence omnibus spending legislation currently before the Congress.

Servicemembers United executive director Alex Nicholson, and Servicemembers Legal Defense Network executive director Aubrey Sarvis also spoke at the rally. Sarvis taking aim at the White House statement released in response to Secretary Gate's letter. Assistant White House Press Secretary Tommy Vietor said;

"The President's commitment to repealing "don't ask, don't tell" is unequivocal. This is not a question of if, but how. That's why we've said that the implementation of any congressional repeal will be delayed until the DOD study of how best to implement that repeal is completed. The President is committed to getting this done both soon and right."

“Most journalists had turned off their computers and were safely into happy hour when the White House issued a statement,” Sarvis told the protesters. 

Though the White House statement said President Barack Obama’s commitment to repeal was “unequivocal,” Sarvis called the statement “nothing if not equivocal.” 

“There is a stark and not very flattering contrast here between President Obama, who follows his military, and President Truman, whose military followed him,” said Sarvis.

Servicemembers United’s Nicholson told the protesters that he had run into the White House Chief Of Staff Rahm Emanuel yesterday and had asked him whether there was still a chance that repeal could happen this year.

“He said he thought we had a 30 to 40 percent shot of repealing ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ left this year,” Nicholson said. “You know why it’s not 60 to 80 percent? Because they don’t support us right now,” he added, pointing at the White House as the crowd cheered.

Lt. Dan Choi, when asked after the rally his opinion on the fact that the defence establishments of several of the United States' allies, who have Gay & Lesbians serving, regard the U. S. policy as deeply flawed and out of touch, Choi noted: 

"There's an overwhelming feeling of insult that yet another study has to be executed. Afterall, in the battlefield conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan, in close quarters, like our European allies, we're [Gay & Lesbians] already serving right now.  The need to study anything is beguiling the facts that on the ground there are already openly Gay servicemembers.

I realise that internationally this is already a black mark on our country in the same way that it took us so long to abolish slavery, the same way that it's taken us so long to achieve and yet not achieve women's rights and full equality, and in the same way we're having issues with immigration-the world is laughing at us. 

Relevant to these studies and reviews that are going on, you don't need to go to other countries. You just need to be proactive looking at organisations and even government departments that are already integrated with Gays & Lesbians serving in them like say the U. S. State Department."