A Bad Solution To Discrimination By The Texas National Guard

It was learned recently that the Texas National Guard has been discriminating against same-sex married couples. The Department of Defense recently stopped their discrimination, and ordered all married couples to receive the same federal benefits (regardless of whether they were same-sex or opposite-sex couples). That should have settled things since the benefits received by these couples, whether in the regular military services or the National Guard, are federal benefits -- not state benefits.

But Texas decided to continue its discrimination anyway, once again flouting federal rules and regulations. With encouragement from Republican state leaders, Major General John Nichols (commander of all Texas Military Forces, including the National Guard) instructed Texas National Guard installations to refuse to sign same-sex married couples up for the benefits available to all members of the National Guard (access to commissary, housing allowances, medical care, etc.). He ruled that opposite-sex couples could register for the benefits at state facilities, but same-sex couples would have to travel to a federal facility (like Fort Hood) to register. He claimed that state law prevented this registration.

That a load of crap though. While Texas law prevents same-sex couples from being married in the state, it does not prevent them from registering for federal benefits -- even at state facilities. This illegal discrimination was nothing more that state Republican leaders trying to please their teabagger base, and had nothing to do with the law.

The Department of Defense has come up with a solution to the discrimination now. Instead of forcing Texas to abide by national regulations for the disbursement of federal benefits, they just decided to require all National Guard members (even those opposite-sex married couples) to sign up with a federal official. For their part, Texas National Guard officials say they will not deny the benefits to anyone registered for them by the federal government officials -- which is not much, since Texas couldn't deny federal benefits if it wanted to.

This sounds like a poor solution to me, and Stephen Peters of the American Military Partner Association agrees. He said:

"The personnel, funding and systems being used previously to process these enrollments were already federally funded. Requiring everyone, both gay and straight couples, to travel potentially far distances away from their home units to enroll for benefits at a facility on federal property sounds more like they are making it worse for all, rather than simply complying with federal directives."

This whole thing is ridiculous. Refusing to register anyone just to continue discriminating against same-sex couples is just mean-spirited and stupid, but that's how Texas Republicans are. Mean and stupid are among their primary values.