Leniency for Female A.F. Pilot Urged

WASHINGTON —  Assailing “gender schizophrenia” in the U.S. military, Sen. Slade Gorton urged the Air Force on Wednesday to dismiss the criminal adultery charges against the nation’s first female bomber pilot.

Gorton, a Republican from Washington state and a former Air Force judge advocate and Washington state attorney general, said informal sanctions would be more appropriate for Lt. Kelly Flinn, who faces court-martial May 20 at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.

“It is difficult for me, as an officer who served for more than 20 years as an Air Force judge advocate, to imagine that no other officer at Minot Air Force Base has committed the offense of which Lt. Flinn stands accused,” Gorton said Wednesday. “Wisdom and good judgment seem clearly to demand a dismissal of the criminal charges against Lt. Flinn.”

Flinn, 26, who is single, is charged with adultery and fraternization in connection with two affairs that the Air Force says she had over the last year, one with an unmarried enlisted man and the other with a married civilian. She also is charged with lying to investigators and disobeying an order to stay away from the married man.

“It’s a crime in the U.S. military to commit adultery. We can’t allow our people to decide which rules they want to obey,” said Maj. Ed Worley, an Air Force spokesman.