March 16, 2017 – U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) Makes Groundbreaking News in Selection of New Commandant

In an email to USAFA staff on March 16, 2017, current USAFA Superintendent Lt. Gen. Michelle Johnson announced the Secretary of the Air Force has nominated Brig. Gen. Kristin Goodwin as the next USAFA Commandant. Of particular import to this selection is the fact that Brig. Gen. Goodwin is gay and married to her wife Kelly with which she has two children. While this monumental decision is an obvious national move forward in the civil rights of many service members, MRFF questions the limited publicity this decision has generated from U.S. Air Force leadership. MRFF’s simple question for USAFA and U.S. Air Force leadership is why are they not publicly acknowledging this groundbreaking selection of a gay, female new Commandant?

In any event, MRFF praises a decision that comes after 13 years of MRFF President/Founder Mikey Weinstein’s “warfare” with USAFA over civil rights and church-state separation issues at USAFA. This praise comes in light of MRFF’s past actions on behalf of clients to stand up against USAFA’s glaring examples of religiously based homophobia such as the hiring of Dr. Mike Rosebush as “Chief, Coaching Development” at USAFA’s Center for Character and Leadership Development who has spent his life promoting and applying the universally-debunked and pseudoscientific treatment known as “reparative” or “conversion” therapy. MRFF also exposed USAFA’s use in a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) of a homophobic website as a source for Jewish holiday information. These particular actions led MRFF to hold the very first gay rights public protest, near the Academy’s South Gate entrance in March/2013 then later post a billboard near the entrance of USAFA in November/2013 exposing and denouncing USAFA’s religiously based homophobic actions in hiring Rosebush.