December 10, 2013.
I think this article in Prospect Magazine, “The Passion of Dan Choi,” is very important for the LGBT community and more generically for anyone thinking that celebrity lasts forever and everyone will love you—especially those working for the same cause.
Each person has to be able to work for the cause and still like him/herself after his time in work is past. That seems to be generic problem with many people-they feel worthless without a job and title.
It confirms most of what Don Slater and Dorr Legg and others warned activists about from 1950s on. The writer, Gabriel Arana, has done a good job, and his article does what I have often asked GLBT journalists/historians to do: follow up and tell us what happened to those who were active and then disappeared.
Perhaps I found it interesting because he seemed to do what I did, reach a point where you said to hell with it and acted badly and not in the best interests of the service—which he chose to join.
In a strange world, he both found out you can not depend on those who should be supporting you and he became a bad example of why letting one person be the speaker, is not good. What even the article fails to point out, and is relevant, is what had been done before Choi, on the problem/issue. He should have known of the early efforts. It seems to me a copout to call DADT a bad idea—it was the best for that time. And his efforts to get ahead of others working more silently and even for a longer time, is not honorable and shows he is not a good co-worker/soldier.
