Our American Neighbours Have A Hero In Dan Choi And Have Struck A High Note For Human Justice

A Commentary by Doug Draper

”Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
– the late American civil rights leader,  Martin Luther King Jr.

“When you are on the right side of justice and history, you never go backwards.” – former U.S. military officer and Middle East war veteran Dan Choi, thrown out of the army because he came out of the closet as a Gay under America’s finally revoked ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy.

Well, Hallelujah! We’ve had some fine hallelujah in a post featuring Vickie Fagan below, and a video of choruses of that song that went viral on Youtube.  But I am talking here about something else – about a vote by the U.S. Congress and Senate, expected to be signed before Christmas by President Barack Obama before Christmas – to finally end discrimination against gay people in the U.S. armed forces.

Dan Choi with American actress and gay rights activist Kathy Griffin at a rally earlier this year against 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy for U.S. military.

As someone who is not gay but who grew up fighting discrimination and supporting the civil rights movement for African Americans in the 1950s and 60s, I believe the repeal this December of his Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy – requiring gay men and women to hide in the closet if they want to serve their country in the military forces, – is as important as the U.S. Civil Rights Act that was finally signed in 1964 by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who apparently had every intention of signing it at the time he was cut down.

This repeal of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ business is landmark human rights legislation and as a neighbour of the United States and close friend of many on the U.S. side of the border, I am proud that your president, this late week in December, is able to sign it.

Much credit must also go out to Joe Lieiberman believe it or not, the U.S. Senator for Connecticut, who has oftent acted more like a right wing Republican than the Democrat he is on so many other progressive issues in recent years. Lieberman led the charge around getting enough Senate votes to kill discrimination against gays serving in the armed forces.

Lieberman, tohis credit, continued stressing that this issue about allowing gays to serve their country in the army should not be about partisan politics but about basic human rights. For that he, along with this U.S. president, Barack Obama, deserve a place in taking the United States forward in advancing human rights.

But at the end of the day,  the real hero here is a guy named Dan Choi, who served his country in the Middle East according to the rules of engagement, and was booted out of the military when he came out of the closet. He was arrested for chaining himself against the fence around the White House for trying to make the rights of gay people known. In his own way, he’s another Martin Luther King. If that sounds like elevating him to some lofty heights, this commentator thinks he deserves it.

(Visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to our greater binational Niagara region.)