Tue. January 4, 2011
Norfolk, Virginia -
Aircraft carrier Commander Capt. Owen Honors will be relieved of duty on Tuesday, after an investigation into videos he produced that included simulated lesbian and gay shower sex scenes and gay slurs.
CNN reported that Honors had been relieved of his command but now reports the Navy is expected to relieve Honors. The Associated Press said the Navy is expected to take the action, with an announcement expected Tuesday afternoon.
Multiple national news websites reported on Tuesday that Honors will not be kicked out of the Navy (yet), but his career is essentially over.
The videos were filmed with U.S. government equipment in 2006 and 2007 and broadcast on closed-circuit television on the U.S.S. Enterprise while it was deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Capt. Honors was the "executive officer" (second-in-command) at the time. As of Monday evening, he was the commanding officer of the Enterprise, which is scheduled to deploy again soon.
On Friday, the Navy said that the videos had been investigated years ago and that it was "unfortunate" that copies still existed on shipboard computers, reported the Virginian-Pilot.
However, on Sunday, Naval leaders announced a new investigation into the matter.
"The videos created onboard USS Enterprise in 2006-2007 are clearly inappropriate [and] were not acceptable then and are not acceptable in today's Navy. The Navy does not endorse or condone these kinds of actions," the Navy said in a written statement.
In the videos, Honors acknowledged that he had his critics.
"Over the years I've gotten complaints about inappropriate material during these videos, never to me personally but, gutlessly through other channels... go ahead and hug yourself for the next 20 minutes or so, because there's really a good chance you're gonna be offended," he said.
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