There are about 9,000 names for the impending storm that is making its way into our fair city right now. It is supposed to start snowing in a couple of hours - the Federal Government closes at 1 pm - but when I woke up this morning it was cold and dark outside.

It wasn't calm. It was like in a movie as the storms roll in. With the Jaws music and the thunder. It could have been a good Hitchcock opening.

I packed a suitcase and grabbed my backpack, ready to spend the weekend in the District, mostly so I can play football in the blizzard tomorrow morning, but also because I didn't want to be stuck in Arlington for four days.

Quick update: It has started snowing. At 10:45 am. Currently there are four people in my office. Waiting for whiteout conditions tonight. The grocery stores in the district have been overrun, with hours-long waits at checkout counters (I honestly am not making that up). Literally, it's like people are about to hibernate for the winter. In February. Someone actually spent money to buy the URL and create this website: snowpocalypsedc.com.

So naturally, I want to talk to you about Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy. Because I'm a political junkie, and I've seen snow before.

Just in case you've never heard of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, it is the policy, passed into law 17 years ago, that says gays and lesbians cannot serve in the military openly. If kept private, technically they are alright. However, even if outed by a third party, they can be discharged.

Inevitably, in hearings like this, some very nasty things can be said. On the Daily Show a couple of days ago, John Stewart did a mashup of a few of the things said by opponents (notice, all Southern Republicans). He also pointed out the contrasting views of a former president candidate, John McCain:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
A Few Gay Men & Women
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I actually really love the part where he screams: "permission to get goosebumps, sir!" Also, the headline he uses, but only because A Few Good Men is my favorite movie.

Also, the question will certainly come up as to why I would use a comedy show to explain and highlight something like this. My answer is two-fold. Yes, it is serious, very much a Civil Rights type of issue and delicate. That said, I use comedy, specifically Stewart, to highlight everything, most of which is also serious. I don't do it because it lightens the mood. I do it because John Stewart knows what the hell he is talking about, explains it well, and then it lightens the mood. As you saw with the Senate joke.

Secondly, and piggybacking off the first point, people trust Stewart. When Bill O'Reilly called Daily Show fans "stoned slackers," he knew he was wrong. Well educated, extremely successful people watch his show all the time. I watch clips from it every morning at work, and I of course fit into the educated category.

Back to the issue. I have obviously never served in the military. I don't forsee myself serving in the military. My closest experience to anything like this is having played with gay teammates, as well as worked with several gay co-workers. I'll submit that the relationships are far far different.

I'll also submit that military simply uses different rules than the rest of us, for very good reasons. To that end, these decisions should be made by the military, not the U.S. Congress, or even the president for that might, despite his Commander-in-Chief title.

However, on this issue, I have actually made a decision to go with my favorite writer of all-time, Aaron Sorkin. In the first season of the West Wing, this issue comes up. Sam Seaborn is arguing profusely with two military personnel, when Admiral Fitzwallace, who is black, walks in. He says this:

"That's what I think too (that gays would disrupt the cohesion of the unit). I also think the military shouldn't be an instrument for social change... Problem with that is, that's what they were saying to me fifty years ago. Blacks shouldn't serve with whites, it would disrupt the unit... You know what? It did disrupt the unit. You know what else? The unit got over it. The unit changed. I'm an Admiral in the U.S. Navy and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Beat that with a stick."

Part of this stance is probably a byproduct of me having never served in the military. I am okay with that. I have a very good friend up in Seattle who was a Tuskegee Airman during WWII. He is an usher at UW, was invited to the inauguration by then-President-elect Obama, and, when he couldn't afford, UW raised the money through small donations of athletic department employees, to send him to Washington. When he served, he was part of one of the most well-known and decorated units in the military.

Obviously, he is black. He served in a racially segregated military, for a country that didn't recognize all of his rights, in a war that also saw a mammoth court martial, in Seattle, of 28 black soldiers for the murder of an Italian prisoner of war. Jack Hamann, another friend and author in Seattle, has shown in a book that the military got it wrong. Recently, Rep. Jim McDermott asked the military to take another look, which it did, and the convicted soldiers were exonerated.

These men served despite their status as unequal. There is no hiding being another skin color. There should be no hiding of your sexual orientation. This may be a way off base assessment, but I feel like the military probably has a bigger problem with the sexual habits of it's heterosexual members, than its homosexual ones.

Outside of that, I don't see an issue. Can you shoot straight? Are you American? Are you willing to die for our country, but would rather live for it? Do you put on a uniform, go where they tell you to go and protect those of us who do not take up arms? When natural disasters hit, are you part of that first group in to help ravaged regions recover?

What do you look like, lust after or who do you fall in love with? I don't give a damn. You're better than any one of us.