Stephen Colbert who is broadcasting from Baghdad, Iraq this week broaches the controversial issue in front of a packed house of officers and soldiers. Watch:

It’s hard to read the applause and laughter of the audience. Was it because of Colbert “playing” gay or the absurdity of the policy? Or mixture of both? I did notice the lack of recognition in the audience when Lt. Dan Choi and Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, both victims of DADT were mentioned. Not even a smattering of applause. Hopefully they were simply unaware of the news back home.

It would have been interesting if they had done cutaways to the audience for their reactions during the segment… It would have been doubly interesting if Colbert had polled the audience about their position on DADT. But this is a comedy show… lest we forget.

Hundreds of people protested DADT outside the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills yesterday evening where President Barack Obama was holding a Democratic fundraiser. Lt. Dan Choi, a West Point grad and Arab linguist who was recently discharged for coming out on the Rachel Maddow Show, spoke to the crowd:

Obama failed to acknowledge the protesters, except as a throw away line at the fundraiser as reported in the NY Times:

A gaggle of sign-waving [DADT] protesters milled around outside The Beverly Hilton, the sprawling hotel on Wilshire Boulevard. They must have caught the president’s eye when he arrived at the hotel from an earlier stop in Las Vegas because he relayed one of their messages to the crowd.

“One of them said, “Obama keep your promise,’ ” the president said. “I thought that’s fair. I don’t know which promise he was talking about.”

This morning Choi also appeared on MSNBC with David Shuster discussing his discharge.

National Security Advisor General James Jones appeared on ABC’s This Week discussing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,”  indicating he was unsure if it would be overturned. Watch.

We really need to hear Obama publicly address the issue, as we are all growing tired of the hedging from others in the administration. But I continue to resist the idea that Obama is turning his back on the gay community, and am hopeful the president will do the right thing, sooner than later. We must not continue to dishonor brave patriots like Lt. Dan Choi with this policy.

The idea that Barack Obama has failed the gay community is catching fire in the media. The NY Times, Rachel Maddow, CNN, and the Huffington Post, are just a few of the outlets who have recently covered the story. Conservatives must be grinning like Cheshire cats as one of Obama’s own constituencies throws him under the proverbial bus.

If you have been following my blog recently, you know that I’ve been growing increasingly frustrated by the Me-Me-Me-Now-Now-Now coming from the gay community. I get it. I’m gay. It’s part of the genetic code. But it’s barely been a 100 days and there is nothing but whining and complaining, nothing remotely resembling patience. Can Obama do better? Sure. Has he written off the gay community as many have suggested? Hardly. Keep in mind the state of the union that Obama inherited was the worst of any President EVER. Yet many in the gay community seem reluctant to cut him any slack. I hate drawing moral equivalencies but how can you compare the hurt caused by the denial of marriage to a same-sex couple, to the the hurt experienced by a woman who can no longer receive chemo because she has been denied coverage by a greedy insurance provider? And this comes from someone who married his partner of 9 years last September and lives with the threat of Prop 8 taking it all away.

If Obama comes out in full support of the marriage equality decisions that have already taken place in a number of states what do you think will happen? His support will serve as a lightening rod to the anti-marriage movement growing their numbers. Do we really want this when the states seem to be making progress on their own? Are we that insecure that we need a pat on the back from the Obama administration? I find it frankly a little embarrassing and I am sure social conservatives are relishing it. I also find it interesting that the anti-Obama sentiment spreading through the gay community is strangely similar to that exhibited by gay Hillary Clinton supporters during the primaries, and some of the same blogs that carried that water then are carrying it now.

The Republicans are falling apart and the last thing I want is for the Obama administration to provide the glue to put them back together again. I think in the short term Obama could make progress on DADT without it becoming a lightning rod. Polls show that most of the electorate approve of gays serving in the military. I think Obama could set a wonderful first example by reinstating Lt. Dan Choi and letting that serve as the ice breaker for moving things forward.

I wonder if the gay community will give Obama any credit when he signs hate crimes legislation in a few weeks. If the first 100 days is any measure, probably not.

Let the onslaught of those accusing me of being an Obama apologist begin…