Gay Man Becomes Acting Secretary of Air Force

The shrieks, convulsions and sheets of flying spittle will be moving into high gear as the Christofascists get wind that Eric Fanning (pictured above), a gay man has been appointed Acting Secretary of the Air Force.  With luck, Tony Perkins and his gay hating compatriots will have an aneurysm.   An article in The Advocate looks at the appointment.  Here are highlights:

Eric Fanning, undersecretary of the Air Force, became acting secretary of the branch Friday with the retirement of Michael Donley, making Fanning the highest-ranking LGBT person in the Department of Defense.

“President Obama is yet to nominate Donley’s replacement, so Fanning should be serving in the dual roles for a while,” notes BuzzFeed.

The interim assignment makes Fanning the civilian head of the Air Force. The Senate confirmed him as undersecretary in April. Before that, he had been deputy undersecretary and deputy chief management officer for the Navy since 2009.

While he is limited in the advocacy he can do in his job, he said he personally supports the adoption of an explicit policy barring anti-LGBT discrimination in the military, and he would like to see openly transgender people be able to serve. And he would like to see the Defense of Marriage Act struck down, as it stands in the way of many benefits for married same-sex military couples by preventing the federal government from recognizing their relationships.

“In some ways, DOMA, which I think is a terrible law, made the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ easier because it took some of the more emotional issues off the table,” he told the Blade, “but in terms of extending benefits, I think everyone who serves in uniform should have full access to legal benefits, and so DOMA is the main roadblock to that.”

Religious belief needs to be driven out of both the U.S. Military's policies and the civil laws.  Christofascists in their ignorance and hate can believe what they want, but their views should have no place in public policy or the nation's laws.

Head of Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Arrested for Sexual Assault

Prior to the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the hate merchants of Family Research Council and the always lunatic Elaine Donnelly shrieked that open service by gays and lesbians would usher in all kinds of sexual assaults and destroy morale.  Of course, none of these dire predictions have come to pass.  But they were right about one thing - there is a huge problem of sexual assaults in the military.  And its principally the heterosexual males who are doing the assaulting.  And nothing underscores the problem more than the arrest of Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski (pictured at right and still bearing marks from his would be victims defense of herself) who was charged with groping a woman in a northern Virginia parking lot on Sunday.  Krusinski is the - or more accurately, was - head of the Air Force's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response unit.  The Virginian Pilot looks at the debacle.  Here are highlights:

The sexual battery arrest of the Air Force officer who led the service's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response unit underscores how far the Defense Department has to go in addressing the plague of sexual crimes in the military, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., told a committee hearing that a Pentagon report to be released later Tuesday reportedly estimates that, on average, there are more than 70 sexual assaults involving military personnel every day.

Authorities in Arlington County, Virginia, said Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski was charged with groping a woman in a northern Virginia parking lot on Sunday. Krusinski was removed from his post in the sexual assault unit after the Air Force learned of his arrest. He started in the post in February.  "While under our legal system everyone is innocent until proven guilty, this arrest speaks volumes about the status and effectiveness of (the Defense) department's efforts to address the plague of sexual assaults in the military," Levin said.

The Pentagon report says that the number of sexual assaults reported by members of the military rose from 3,192 to 3,374 in 2012, while the department estimates that as many as 26,000 service members were assaulted, based on anonymous surveys, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the report.

A police report said that the 41-year-old Krusinski was drunk and grabbed a woman's breast and buttocks. The woman fought him off and called police, the report said.

Two cases involving decisions by three-star generals to overturn guilty verdicts in sexual assault cases have outraged members of Congress and propelled a bipartisan push to change the military justice system to essentially strip commanding officers of their ability to reverse criminal convictions.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., is holding up the nomination of Air Force Lt. Gen. Susan Helms, tapped to serve as vice commander of the U.S. Space Command, until the Missouri Democrat gets more information about Helms' decision to overturn a jury conviction in a sexual assault case.

So far, not a word from Mr. Perkins or Ms. Donnelly.  I can only wonder who long before they somehow say these crimes and outrages are all the fault of gays.