Captain Owen Honors will be temporarily
relieved of duty as the Navy looks into a series of lewd videos
produced and screened aboard the USS Enterprise as the aircraft
carrier simultaneously supported two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Several of the videos were leaked
without explanation late last week to the Norfolk-based daily The
Virginian-Pilot.
According to MSNBC, Honors could be
relieved of duty as early as Tuesday.
Produced in 2006 and 2007, the videos
star Honors – now the commander of the Enterprise, the world's
first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier – in sophomoric skits which
include the use of homophobic slurs, sailors parading in drag and
Honors simulating masturbation.
Honors, who is credited for writing and
producing the videos, was the carrier's executive officer, or XO, at
the time, and called them part of “XO Movie Night.”
In the skits, Honors refers to a Navy
surface warfare officer, or SWO – also played by Honors – as “fag
SWO boy.” SWOs include the officers who crew the carrier. In
another segment, called by Honors “chicks in the shower,”
same-sex sailors – in one instance two women and two men in another
– shower together. (The video is embedded in the right panel of
this page.)
The videos have surfaced as the
military prepares for the end of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell,” the law
that bans gay and bisexual troops from serving openly, and is keen on
promoting itself as welcoming to gay and lesbian service members.
According to one military expert,
Honors' Navy career is over.
“He's done. His career is over,”
Stephen Saltzburg, the general counsel of the National Institute of
Military Justice and a law professor at George Washington University,
told
AOL News. “This is just bad judgment – horribly bad
judgment.”
Several female sailors said they were
offended by the videos and complained about them to superior officers
but their concerns were brushed aside.