UPDATE: Details released for protest in Irvine in support of Lt. Dan Choi and other activists (see below) . . .
Clockwork is no expert on military jurisprudence, so does anyone know if getting arrested for chaining oneself to a White House gate–while in uniform, mind you–makes one just as likely to get bounced from the service as, say, “telling” in violation of the “don't ask, don't tell” policy?
Lt. Dan Choi, who is originally from Tustin, may know the answer.
]
Choi, who was just called back to active duty with his Army National Guard unit in upstate New York last month, and Capt. Jim
Pietrangelo were arrested at the White House gates Thursday for their
very public protest of “don't ask, don't tell.”
It happened after a Human Rights Campaign rally aimed at repealing the controversial policy at Freedom Plaza in
Washington, D.C.
Choi, who was not scheduled to attend the rally, showed up at the
last minute and asked to be added to the program, reports The
Advocate.
“You've been told that the White House has a plan,”
Choi told rally attendees. “But we learned this week that the president
is still not
fully committed. . . . Following this rally, I will be leading [the
protest] to the White House to say 'enough talk.' . . . I am still standing, I
am still fighting, I am still speaking out, and I am still gay.”
Choi, whose discharge under don't ask, don't tell is pending, and Pietrangelo, who has already been discharged under the ban, then led about 100 protesters to the White
House, where the two were handcuffed to the gates by gay activist Robin McGehee.
Police then blocked the White House entrance, put yellow police tape around the area where protest was staged and arrested Choi, Pietrangelo and McGehee.
The men were taken to the U.S. Park Police's Anacostia station, where they were charged with failure to obey a lawful order, and then held overnight at the D.C. Central Cell Block. They were scheduled to appear
today in D.C. Superior Court.
McGehee
was arrested for helping to handcuff the servicemen. She was released
Thursday evening.
Rallies in support of Choi and Pietrangelo were scheduled to go off just about now in Orlando, Florida, and in front of the Times Square Military Recruitment
Office in New York.
UPDATE: A Facebook page announces there will be a protest “as the sun sets in honor of the
activists who just took tremendous risks for our rights.” It's scheduled for 6-7:30 tonight at the footbridge along Campus Drive between West and East Peltason on the campus of UC Irvine, above the Army recruiting center.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.