Hagel Cracks Down On Insubordinate Red State National Guards
It seems that National Guard organizations in hardcore red states were discriminating against the spouses of gay service members. Not anymore – SecDef Chuck Hagel cracked down late yesterday:
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has just said this evening that he is directing rogue National Guard organizations in mostly-southern red states [to] start issuing Pentagon ID cards to their spouses.
In the past few months, the National Guard in Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Indiana, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and West Virginia has refused to recognize the same-sex spouses of gay service members because of homophobic local Republican politicians.
When the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act was struck down on June 26, 2013, the Pentagon ordered same-sex spouses to be treated the same as the spouses of heterosexual US service members. The National Guards in the states mentioned above refused to issue ID cards to the spouses of gay service members, arguing that anti-”gay marriage” laws in the states forbade them from doing so.
Secretary Hagel said tonight that those state National Guards are breaking federal law, and DOD policy, and it won’t be tolerated.
Frankly, a few of the state-level instigators could use a good, rigorous court-martial.
