Lt. Col. Jonathan C. Dowty #ableist #fundie dailykos.com
Excerpt from an article on DailyKos about this guy
The “Christian Fighter Pilot” is Air Force Lt. Col. Dowty, a former fighter pilot turned paper pusher after being rejected for a position as an instructor at the Air Force Academy. The organization that I work for, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has been aware of Lt. Col. Dowty and his blog for many years, mainly because MRFF and its president Mikey Weinstein are the favorite subject of Dowty’s so-called “ministry.” As of 2012, when I wrote the piece mentioned in the first paragraph, Dowty had written an astounding 432 posts tagged with either MRFF or Weinstein’s name. That was the number as of seven years ago, and Dowty has continued his diatribes against MRFF ever since, sometimes with multiple posts in the same week, bringing his tally of posts about MRFF to well over 1,000.
Dowty has a long track record of virulent homophobic, misogynistic, and Islamophobic posts, and also attacks Christians who aren’t the “right kind” of Christians in his mind. He also has no qualms about disrespecting superior officers, such as publicly accusing the first lesbian commandant of the Air Force Academy of being a liar, and cyber-stalking MRFF’s junior enlisted clients.
MRFF has attempted to get the Air Force to take some sort of action regarding Dowty and his very un-officer-like writings, even filing an Inspector General complaint, but to no avail. He continues to publish his vile screeds with impunity. In the thirteen years since he started his “ministry” blog, he has only had to remove one post — a post equating homosexuality to bestiality.
But, of all the reprehensible trash that has spewed forth from this fine “Christian” officer’s keyboard, his post yesterday, going after the pilot with ALS, is without doubt the most revolting. In this post, titled “How an Air Force Fighter Pilot Faces His Approaching Death. How Would You?,” after quoting from an Air Force article about the pilot, whose attitude would to most people be inspirational, Dowty wrote:
“Naturally, when we talk about someone’s death — especially that of a terminal illness — we speak of mortality, legacy, and perspective. Christians also speak of their faith. As appears evident from the interviews above, Christ is not a part of Holloway’s life. The only direct non-theistic detail publicly available was the fact their post-courthouse wedding ceremony was explicitly ‘non-religious.’ Otherwise, if you can communicate your deepest thoughts on your coming death and not once mention even spirituality, it’s probably a safe bet you’re not concerned with religion.
“Regrettably, that deepens the tragedy. To know that your soul will soon be required of you and to yet not be concerned of things eternal is distressing on an eternal level. Yet, there is still time.”
Just as egregiously insensitive was Dowty’s comment about the pilot’s callsign being “Twitch.” Dowty actually wrote of that:
“Left unsaid is whether the symptoms of the undiagnosed disease were the source of his callsign, ‘Twitch.’”