Here’s one more brick in the road to Appomattox, Part Deux:
Supreme Court decisions or not, Defense Department orders or not, bigots are gonna be bigots. That’s the reminder we get from various states’ refusals to follow a direct order from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to give National Guard members in same-sex marriages the spousal benefits to which they are entitled. Bigots can take different routes, though. In Texas, they’re simply refusing to do it, sending same-sex couples to federal facilities that might be hundreds of miles away. Oklahoma, by contrast, has stopped processing spousal benefits for everyone, apparently figuring it doesn’t count as discrimination if you treat everyone equally badly in order to be allowed to treat some people badly.
If they could have banned public restrooms rather than integrating them, they would have done so.
Feds should take back their funding and equipment, as I believe they are able to do.
Kinda sorta.
Almost the equipment the guard uses is on loan from the actual Army and Air Force. So they can end up with a national guard that has no trucks, guns, helicopters, or anything else needed to function as a military unit.
They can also refuse to certify them, which means all the senior enlisted and officers ranks are worth a warm bucket of piss outside their home state, and this counts against their retirement as well.
There’s nothing stopping the states from paying for their own helicopters, guns, trucks, tanks, and simply having their troops ranks and military privs be worthless outside of the state. It’s a fucking stupid idea that would be a nightmare for all involved, but they could do it.
The DOD can take them behind the woodshed, and eventually they will. Keep in mind that when prior social changes happened various state governors told the guard to engage in this sort of fuck muppetry as well.
fuck muppetry
Now that’s something I never saw on Sesame Street.
But it is in Avenue Q. And very funny.
Isn’t that how they started a few hundred years back?
When Orval Faubus did it, President Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard.
When Ross Barnet would not stop white students rioting at the University of Mississippi, President Kennedy federalized the Mississippi National Guard.
When hurricanes strike, the arrival of FEMA typically federalizes the state National Guard. Or it did pre-Katrina.
Instead, they shut down community swimming pools and yanked their kids out of the public schools.
Same ol’ same ol’.
Yanked them out? No they tried shutting the schools down, too:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_resistance
at least cost of their evil is being borne by all, and not just the targeted group. the bigots explicitly sharing the cost of their hate is about the best that could be hoped for from an electorate that voted for that governor by a 20+ point margin.
The only people being screwed by this are the national guard members who are being ordered around by their governor. So you are calling the national guard a bunch of hateful bigots?
Keep spitting on soldiers there champ.
Undoubtedly some of them are.
The senior leadership IS.
Where are the senior rank officers and senior enlisted going public complaining about their being told to violate the United States Constitution, the foremost document they swore their loyalty to?
Sorry but they are agreeing to screw over the people they are responsible for their welfare and well being because a few BIGOTS are being told to join the 21st century??????
Sorry assed bunch of pussies in uniformed leadership in that state if you ask me. They were willing to stand up to Clinton for bigotry, but actual equality they are yellow bellied cowards, wearing uniforms in leadership positions.
PS; it still says US Army or US Air Force on those National Guard uniforms ……… they are still beholden to the UCMJ
Looks like this will have to be pursued in the courts. The governor is commander in chief of the National Guard, so I guess there is not much the federal govt can do except sue, or participate in lawsuits brought by affected individuals. Of course, the president could federalize the OK National Guard, and then order them to provide same sex benefits.
But since they’re “real” Americans, not to mention exceptionally exceptional, it’s okay.
Interesting to me is that when school districts tried to opt out of selling their student lists to military recruiters, the federal government wasted very little time in stripping those schools of federal funding. I wonder how long the Sooner Temper Tantrum will continue without the feds saying a word? I’ll put the over/under at “never” and take the over.
More military bashing that’s factually wrong. What’s wrong couldn’t find a homeless vet to spit on today?
We’ve been through this before. Governors tried to pull this with racial integration and women in the services. The governors threw a shit fit and ordered the guard to act stupid and then the DOD took them behind the woodshed and all was fixed. This is not new for the DOD.
The military has been at the edge of pushing social equality and all they get from the people who should care about that is… non stop hate. No wonder when I was in all the old timers warned us that liberals hate us, you guys are proving it true in this thread.
where is the bashing of the military? He’s bashing Oklahoma and the government there, not the soldiers.
SiDC, you’ve played that card in two comments here, and I don’t see it in either one. The closest is that DoD’s original order, and any decision on how aggressively to enforce it, comes from a political appointee (Hagel) and not career military. And the state national guards serve at the disposal of governors and their appointees, not the guardsmen. It’s the homophobic politicians making guard members’ lives harder – not somebody in a fucking comment thread.
Funny thing is, I’m in Georgia at the moment and the papers here are full of Tea Partiers demanding that the sequester be kept in place, Pentagon be damned, and they’re the ones who’ve been stripping funds from essential services for vets as well. The people advocating for those services? Almost entirely liberal Dems like Sen. Patty Murray. Try focusing on that issue instead. Your Vietnam-era canard needs a little updating.
I see this all time from people who aren’t in or never were who feel the need to defend the military from any perceived slight, real or imagined. We’re not that easily offended. I know what real military bashing is and that wasn’t it.
In fact, there were owners of public accommodations who at that point decided that restrooms were for employees only. Only laws requiring restrooms in food-serving establishments changed that somewhat.
This too will pass. It’s getting harder and harder for a bigot to get away without being challenged.
And the can be federalized and ordered.
I think so . thank for post
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