Q Toon: Offense of Marriage

In August, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced that, in keeping with the Supreme Court ruling striking down the Defense of Marriage Act’s denial of federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples, spousal benefits must be given to the legally wed same-sex spouses of military personnel.  Governors in several red states with marriage inequality written into their state constitutions announced that they would refuse to extend those benefits to National Guard personnel in their states. 

As of mid-November, National Guard units in eight states —Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and West Virginia — were refusing to process applications for benefits at Guard facilities,  or issue the identification card needed to claim benefits and access medical services on the Guard member’s home base. Since then the situation has improved somewhat. West Virginia changed course and Texas struck a deal with the Pentagon, under which federal personnel enroll same-sex spouses at state facilities. Oklahoma, Florida and South Carolina, which were forcing same-sex spouses to travel to federal facilities in order to apply for benefits, are now subjecting all spouses to that trek. (That’s one way of achieving equality.) That leaves only three states, Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia, in outright rebellion.

I guess I should have drawn South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in this week's cartoon instead of Texas's Rick Perry. I did, however, include Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant. Well, sort of. He's that shock of white hair hiding behind Perry and Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin.