The Navy has responded swiftly to videos that surfaced this weekend made by Captain Owen Honors. The videos, which Honors aired on the aircraft carrier’s closed-circuit television system on movie nights back in 2006 and 2007, depict profanity-laced skits where Honors repeatedly used gay slurs, showed sailors in drag miming masturbation, and simulated a rectal exam. Not to worry, ladies, he was an equal opportunity offender and also included a scene of “chicks in the shower,” which he described as “his favorite topic,” naturally. Gay-rights groups have come out in support of the military’s condemnation of the videos, and ABC News reports that Honors, who was promoted after the videos aired, will be relieved of his duty pending investigation. The debate over Honors’s actions has taken over the U.S.S. Enterprise’s public Facebook page, with the majority coming out in support of the videos, calling them a lighthearted morale booster to make sailors laugh during extended deployment, something civilians couldn’t understand.
But the videos themselves offer evidence that even back then, at least some of Honors’s subordinates expressed their distaste toward the skits. In one (below), Honors, who appears side-by-side through video magic with two of his “alternate personalities” — one wearing a Top Gun outfit and the other a gay surface warfare officer — says:
It’s still unclear why or how the videos surfaced four to five years later, or, for that matter, what a high-ranking Navy officer’s workload consists of that he had enough time on his hands to star in these lengthy skits while the ship was supporting two theaters of war.
USS Enterprise Capt. Owen Honors Temporarily Relieved of Duty [ABC World News]
Gay groups praise Navy’s condemnation of videos [WP]
Raunchy videos starring XO shown on carrier Enterprise [Virginian-Pilot]
