For those who can’t get get enough of this year’s poster boys for the fight against DADT, check out this month’s Instinct magazine. Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach and Lt. Dan Choi, both still fighting their final discharges, share the cover in the magazine’s annual Leading Men feature. Below is one of the issue’s photos by Adam Bouska.
Oh my. That is one good picture.
Here’s a bit from the online portion (much more in the print articles), first on Lt. Choi:
I first met Lieutenant Dan Choi in a crowded bar in Chelsea. It was Democratic primary night in New York City, and he was on hand to help celebrate Councilwoman Christine Quinn’s victory. Dan had spent the earlier part of his day on city street corners, passing out literature for Quinn’s campaign, and I asked him why he had spent his time helping the speaker of the New York City Council—a post that has no bearing on gays in the military. “Christine Quinn lobbied Governor Paterson to keep me in the National Guard, so I think we should reward her and reward the governor,” he told me. But neither help from Albany nor a stop-loss order from the White House materialized, and Dan’s separation from the military marched on.
In the print article Lt. Choi reveals that he is no longer a client of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network because of their insistence that he not be so involved with advocacy until after his discharge is final. While I understand the legal benefit of this advice, I’m glad Lt. Choi has put the greater good ahead of his personal benefit.
Then Instinct turned to Lt. Col. Fehrenbach:
In May 2009, Victor faced a dilemma. He was being kicked out of the military for admitting to civilian investigators a year earlier that he had had sex with a man. At first he decided to go along with the discharge, but then he had a change of heart. “The military was taking everything away from me, but the one thing I realized they couldn’t take from me is my sense of right and wrong,” he says. So he decided not only to fight the discharge but to go public with his case on The Rachel Maddow Show. With the exception of the few officers handling his case, no one else on his base knew he was being separated from the military for being gay until he was on MSNBC. Chuckling, he says, “It certainly created quite a stir.”
In the print article, Fehrenbach reveals that he knew Cameron Shaner for six months to a year before the encounter that led to Shaner falsely accusing him of rape.
Fehrenbach also reveals that he’s currently single. Hey Victor, next time you’re in Dayton, I’M TOTALLY AVAILABLE! (Back off, bitches! I saw him first!!!) (Pardon my infatuation, but nothing’s sexier than tattoos and principles.)
Instinct is available wherever magazines are sold.
(Seriously. Call me. I’m not kidding.)
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