Rep. Murphy at SLDN's 18th Annual National Dinner on Saturday.
My exclusive interview at Metro Weekly with Rep. Patrick Murphy — “Murphy’s Law?” — has some good stuff. I think it’s one of the better interviews I’ve done. The opening:
On Friday afternoon, March 19, a day before he was to be the keynote speaker at the 18th Annual National Dinner of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Penn.) took time out of his health care-packed congressional schedule to talk with Metro Weekly.
An Iraq war veteran who served as a captain in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, Murphy took over the leadership of the bill to repeal the military’s ”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 2009 when former Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) left Congress for a post in the State Department of the Obama administration.
Calling Lt. Dan Choi — arrested Thursday, March 18, for protesting the policy at the White House — an ”American hero” and saying that, ”Yes,” there would be a vote on repealing the policy this year, Murphy spoke about both the need for repeal and the efforts to make that repeal happen.
. . . .
Of his forthcoming appearance at tonight’s SLDN event, Murphy said, ”It’s an honor to stand shoulder to shoulder with SLDN and with those heroes who are gay and lesbian and willing to take a bullet for their country.”
Check the interview out!
Rep. Murphy (D-Penn.) gives the keynote address at the SLDN dinner on Saturday evening.
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Chris Geidner is the award-winning senior political editor at D.C.'s Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, The American Prospect, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications, as well as at his blog, Law Dork. In 2011, he received the Excellence in News Writing Award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his coverage of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal. Prior to moving to D.C. in 2009, he served as an attorney on the senior staff at the Ohio Attorney General's Office and had earlier worked for a leading Columbus law firm. An extended biography can be found