Lt. Dan Choi speaks at the National Equality March rally.

Wow. Anderson Cooper refereed Lt. Dan Choi and Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), and it wasn’t even close. Good television, and a nice antidote to Rep. Gohmert’s ant-gay statements yesterday. Watch:

Unfortunately, this is not a surprise.

A military administrative board has recommended a discharge for Lt. Dan Choi who violated the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy by coming out on the Rachel Maddow Show last March. From Syracuse.com…

A four-officer panel meeting at Hancock Air Base notified Choi at about 5 p.m. that it would recommend he be discharged because he has publicly said he is gay.

The recommendation now goes to Lt. Gen. Thomas Miller of the First Army Division, and Gen. Craig McKinley, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, who will make the final decision.

“Today was a setback for me,” Choi said at a 6:10 p.m. news conference. “I got in trouble for saying three words. ‘I am gay.'”

But he said he refuses to lie about being involved in a relationship with another man. Choi said the relationship has made him a better person, a better Christian and a better officer.

Choi, an Arabic-speaking officer who served for 15 months in Iraq as a member of Fort Drum’s 10th Mountain Division before joining a New York National Guard unit based in Manhattan, said he would appeal to the higher-ranking officers to stay in the National Guard.

And an update from tonight’s Rachel Maddow Show:

The discharge process may take up to one year, and Choi may lose veteran benefits as a result.

I covered the San Francisco Pride 2009 Media Party this evening honoring the grand marshals for this year’s Pride parade. I was really happy to meet Lt. Dan Choi, who is serving as one the Celebrity Grand Marshals along with Cloris Leachman and Milk producer Bruce Cohen. Lt. Choi has been in the news lately for outing himself on the Rachel Maddow Show and getting ejected from the military for violating Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He’s a real nice, standup guy, who shouldn’t be punished for who he is or who he loves. Some snapshots from the event below: