Chris Johnson of the Washington Blade has a little context behind the dust-up between Lt Dan Choi and a man who identified himself as affiliated with OFA:
During the question-and-answer portion of the session, Nick Tschida, an Obama campaign volunteer who looked to be either a teenager or in his early twenties, approached the stage and handed Choi and Aravosis campaign material promoting President Obama to the LGBT community. Tschida asked the two for greater support for the president during the 2012 election.
Making his case for Obama, the worker said he couldn’t offer support for same-sex marriage, but noted the president has accomplished other things for the LGBT community. Choi asked the volunteer to clarify that Obama doesn’t marriage equality, to which the worker responded, “No,” and continued to make his case.
Please note Johnson includes the full name. It should be clear soon enough if he was a right wing plant.
I was seated just feet away from the event and Johnson's account squares with my recollection. It was not as abrupt as him just spontaneously stepping up to declare his disagreement with marriage equality. He did appear to be demonstrating that the OFA team was trying on LGBT issues. The paper was the OFA LGBT outreach brochure.
But he didn't know when to stop talking. He didn't need to underscore the org's disagreement on the issue of marriage equality. He didn't need to remind Dan Choi, and all the LGBTs in the room--myself included--that OFA does not support full equality under the law. Some tinkering with the outreach talking points may be in order.
And he certainly didn't help Organizing For America by implying opposition to marriage equality was a top-down edict.
He did seem young, I would have guessed 20s not teens. It actually seemed pretty inappropriate to me. It wasn't a question and answer portion. He seemed to be interrupting the discussion. My bad. Sorry. The floor had been opened for questions. It did seem odd to me to attend a workshop titled "What to do if the President is not that into you?" and challenge the whole premise for the session. I don't think any of those panelists could have been handed an OFA brochure and had their views on the president moved substantially.
But, such is optimistic youth I suppose.
Johnson also got a statement from Lt. Choi, read it here.
10:06 PM PT: I have done a lot of work on marriage equality in New York these past few month. Field work, in Queens. What is really great is how large the coalition is. SEIU, League of Women Voters, Faith groups, NAACP. Democracy for America and Courage Campaign have reached out to their networks and helped us.
But missing from the coalition is Organizing For America, which is apparently what they think is strategically best.