Wednesday, March 22, 2017

GOODWIN MARKS GREAT WIN FOR LGBTQ AT USAFA!

The United States Air Force Academy's (USAFA) announcement of
Brigadier General Select Kristin E. Goodwin
- who is gay and married to her wife Kelly, with whom she has two children - as USAFA's new Commandant of Cadets, is a victory for USAFA's LGBT community.

The announcement shows courageous progress in MRFF's fight against USAFA's culture of homophobia and misogyny,
and its "Gay Cure Guru"!

MRFF Founder and President
Mikey Weinstein's Statement Heralding USAFA's Announcement but with a Burning Question:

"After more than 13 years of entrenched civil rights, church-state separation warfare against my alma mater, the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA), it is extremely difficult to find words of praise for ANYthing it does, but I guess that hell hath frozen over as something truly AMAZING has now just happened.

MRFF received confirmation earlier today from one of our 16 LGBT clients at USAFA that the next Commandant of Cadets will be Brigadier General Select Kristin Goodwin who is a 1993 academy graduate who is gay and married to her wife, Kelly. Together, they have 2 children as well.

MRFF is thrilled at this marvelous selection and on behalf of our 414 USAFA faculty, cadet and staff clients, we offer our most profound congratulations to those who selected Goodwin and to Goodwin herself, of course. Just 4 years ago this month, MRFF engaged in the very first gay rights public protest, near the Academy's South Gate entrance, in support of over 20 LGB faculty, cadets and staff at USAFA who were MRFF clients. And now, some 4 years later, the Air Force has chosen a gay female officer to be its next USAFA Commandant!

But MRFF has a burning question for USAFA and the USAF leadership; why are they not publicly acknowledging
this groundbreaking selection of a gay, female new Commandant? This question HAS to be asked. There's just total silence out there about this? Why? (I wonder what USAFA's Michael Rosebush,
the gay 'reparative therapy enthusiast', is thinking about this
new selection as well?) Should not USAFA and Senior Air Force leadership be touting this action as an historic milestone of jovian magnitude as well?

Goodwin had NO "choice" in embracing her sexual orientation because THAT is NOT a matter of choice. In direct contrast, the Air Force choosing her as the Academy's next Commandant WAS such a "choice" and the right one indeed! MRFF could not be more pleased!"

THE COLORADO SPRINGS INDEPENDENT COVERS MRFF

New female AFA commandant moving here soon, with her wife

Monday, March 20, 2017

Click to read more

EXTENSIVE MEDIA COVERAGE OF MRFF's WAR ON BEHALF OF USAFA's LGBTQ CADETS

3/6/13 VIDEO - FOX 21 News: What's the story behind this billboard? (1:20)

11/27/13 MRFF Posts Billboard in
Colorado Springs Blasting
"Gay Cure" Guru at USAFA

11/22/13 VIDEO - Rachel Maddow - USAF Academy challenged by anti-gay influence, "ex-gay"
Counselor Rosebush (12:45)

2/20/13 MRFF DEMANDS U.S. AIR FORCE TAKE SWIFT CORRECTIVE AND PUNITIVE ACTION
USAF Academy Promotes
Reprehensible Homophobic
Website as Source for Jewish
Holiday Information

10/13/11 CS Indy
Wedding Bell Blues

3/8/13 MRFF's Colorado Springs
Billboard and Protest

12/11/13 AFA's Rosebush Promoted Work of James Dobson in a Military Training Manual

6/15/16 MRFF WARNED YOU, 
USAF ACADEMY (USAFA)...
"The Only Ones Moaning Over Fifty Gays Slaughtered Are Liberals, Idiots And Gay Lovers"
- Walid Shoebat, 2016

11/02/16 AFA Sits on FOIA
Request Nearly 3 Years

2/28/13 Open Letter
from Edie Disler, MRFF
Director of LGBQ Affairs,
to Lt. Gen. Mike Gould, former
Superintendent of USAFA

Subject: Command Climate

Thursday, February 28, 2013

To: Lt. Gen. Mike Gould, Superintendent, U.S. Air Force Academy 
Brig. Gen. Dana H. Born is Dean of the Faculty, U.S. Air Force Academy

CC: Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force 
Mikey Weinstein, Founder and President, Military Religious Freedom Foundation

Dear Lt Gen Gould:

I remember with such fondness working with you at the Pentagon when you were SecAF Widnall's Military Assistant and I was her speech writer.  I also recall you saying to me once, "even though you're not a USAFA grad, I think of you as a Zoomie."  I happily took that as the compliment it was intended to be. 

Despite serving nearly 10 years on the faculty of USAFA ('88-'93 and '04-'09), I largely lost what loyalty I had to it after being disgracefully pulled out of the classroom and investigated for the egregious sin of bringing LGBT Air Force Academy graduates (one of them with 44 combat missions), the early members of the Blue Alliance, into my classroom of firsties.  Apparently these fourth year cadets were theoretically ready to supervise people or fly a plane, but USAFA thought that the topic of the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy was too much for them to handle.  Finishing a career under the cloud of a CDI (Commander-Directed Investigation) cast an all-encompassing pall on what had otherwise been 25 fairly successful and productive years.  I'm telling you this because that is why I volunteer my time to Mikey Weinstein as Advisor to MRFF on LGBT matters.  While I endured the embarrassment of the CDI other faculty members (unbeknownst to me) called Mikey to tell him what was going on.  Those faculty members were mortified at how I was being treated.  So, Mikey reached out to me and has valued my opinion ever since; that's part of what has gained Mikey and MRFF five Nobel Peace Prize nominations.

Four years later, even after the end of the ban on lesbians, gays, and bisexuals in the military, it seems as if a whole new battle has begun.  For some reason, sensitivity to the personal opinions of the homophobes takes priority over human rights.  Deferring to those who would deny rights is hardly new.  Segregated units and barracks were the accommodation given to racists in the military during and after World War II.  When I was a missile launch officer gender segregated missile crews were the accommodation given to wives who didn't want their husbands pulling alert with a woman.    And now, "freedom of expression" is the accommodation being given to homophobes despite the damage it does to unit cohesion.  Just because something comes from a chaplain does not mean it's OK.  I attend a Baptist church in Texas.  Yet I know of Baptists who, to this day, use the Bible to justify their opinion that races should not inter-marry.  Would it be OK for a military chaplain at USAFA to publicly denounce the marriage of an African-American 2nd Lieutenant to an Anglo 2nd Lieutenant in the Cadet Chapel upon graduation?  Why is it OK for chaplains, and even active-duty officers, to spout homophobic rhetoric even while they may be supervising LGB subordinates?

I will finish by asking you this.  Do you have openly gay or lesbian active duty faculty members to act as mentors within Spectrum, or even at large?  I suspect the answer is "no."  Why do you suppose that is?   Lt Gen Gould, I'm sure your life partner would agree that the mentorship of female military members was a lifeline for women in uniform who came through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.  LGB persons in uniform would serve the same purpose today, if they weren"t in such fear of their command climate.

Edie

Edith A. Disler, PhD, MBA, Lt Col (Ret) USAF
MRFF Director of LGBQ Affairs

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