It was through the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic that Chris Gallant discovered he could take charge. While the deadly disease brought New York to a halt, Gallant went to work setting up the country’s largest field hospital.
“That was one of the most surreal experiences of my life – to be able to run something like that,” said Gallant, who served as a safety officer for the unified command at the Javits Center. “That’s when a light went off in my head and I thought, ‘Oh, people actually take me for real now.’”
Gallant said he grew from the experience and now at 36, is ready to hone those skills for the people of New York’s first congressional district. Last week, the military pilot, volunteer firefighter and Suffolk County native announced his bid for Congress.
“I’ve always been kind of wrapped up in a life of service,” Gallant told OutSFL in a telephone interview. “This was the logical next step.”
Gallant holds solid credentials and is capable of performing in high pressure conditions. As an Army National Guardsman, he flew Black Hawk helicopters in overseas missions to the Middle East and worked stateside for the Federal Aviation Administration as an air traffic controller and union leader.
He’s running as a Democrat in a district that he knows well, but it won’t be easy. NY-1 covers eastern Long Island and tends to lean Republican. President Donald Trump won the district three times.
“I’ve been a volunteer firefighter pretty much my entire life and when I go into burning buildings, I never ask the person in there if they’re a Democrat or a Republican,” he said.
Since the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Gallant has served openly in the military as a gay man, with deployments to Kuwait and Iraq. That transparency, he said, has served him well.
“I’ve never had an issue,” Gallant said. “I’ve been very proud of it.”
And yet it's hard to ignore the current administration’s attitude towards the LGBTQ community, particularly Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s witch hunt against transgender service members.
“What really bothers me more than anything is that we just kicked out some amazing soldiers,” Gallant said. “Yeah, they’re trans, but a lot of them are fantastic soldiers, and they have to go above and beyond to do a job to make sure they stand up to that extra level of scrutiny.”
Hegseth also ordered the Navy to scrub the name of gay rights icon Harvey Milk from one of its ships, and recently shared a video from his pastor calling for the criminalization of gay sex.
“That’s appalling,” Gallant said. “I feel as though we are warping backwards in time.”
Meanwhile, Gallant’s opponent, Nick LaLota, a two-term incumbent, seems to be missing in action.
“He doesn’t hold town halls and doesn’t seem to be well liked,” Gallant said. “He normally votes on party lines and doesn’t really have a voice of his own. A lot of the people I’ve talked to have lost faith in our current representation.”
