No Guts
08 May 2009 1:39 am by Taylor Marsh
If this plays out like this story is being reported, nobody should feel good about it.
Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and officer in the Army National Guard who is fluent in Arabic and who returned recently from Iraq, received notice today that the military is about to fire him. Why? Because he came out of the closet as a gay man on national television. …
I spent a day with Dan Choi last month, and he is not someone we want to fire from the military. He loves the armed forces. He served bravely under tough combat conditions in Iraq. His Arabic is excellent, and he used his language skills to diffuse many tough situations and to save lives, both Iraqi and American. All of his unit mates know he is gay, and they have been very supportive of him. But he doesn’t want to live a lie.
As if we have a surplus of fluent Arabic speakers.
Campaign promises don’t look as easy to implement once you’re in office, but if ever there was a moment that cried out for leadership this is one of them. It’s simple. Sign an executive order.
One can only guess how Andrew Sullivan would have written this post if we were talking about President Hillary Clinton firing a gay soldier fluent in Arabic.
