The Georgia National Guard became one of the last units in the nation to comply with a Pentagon directive to grant benefits to same-sex spouses of military members in an about-face highlighting friction between state and federal marriage policies.
Georgia initially defied Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's directive that National Guard units across the nation issue ID cards to same-sex married couples in state facilities so they can access full military benefits regardless of their state laws.
State officials said Georgia’s constitutional amendment banning gay marriages barred such recognition, and argued spouses could still get the ID cards on federal bases. But the Pentagon said Monday a compromise was struck to grant same-sex spouses benefits as long as they were processed through federal facilities.
Maj. Jon Craig, a National Guard spokesman in Washington, said the deal “allows Georgia not to violate state law while also treating all members of their National Guard and their same-sex spouses equally.”
The deal only affects a small fraction of the more than 13,000 Guardsmen in Georgia scattered throughout more than 70 Guard facilities. But the clash offers a snapshot of the balancing act that Georgia and other states face in the wake of other gay rights advances and President Barack Obama's opposition to same-sex marriage bans.
It leaves Mississippi as the last state that refuses to enroll the spouses of gay troops to the system in the wake of the Pentagon's shift away from its "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and the U.S. Supreme Court's June decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act.
The Georgia compromise drew praise from gay rights groups that blasted the state’s refusal to comply.
“I’m sorry that it didn’t happen earlier, but it’s always the right time to do the right thing. And this is certainly the right thing to do,” said Anthony Kreis, a visiting scholar at Emory and an activist with the Human Rights Campaign. “There’s questions about why this change took place when it did, but at the end of the day they’re doing the right thing.”
Critics called the decision a sign of federal overreach. Tanya Ditty, Georgia state director for the Concerned Women for America, pointed to the overwhelming majority of voters who cast ballots in 2004 for the same-sex marriage ban.
“They’re just being coercive at the national level to push a viewpoint and an ideology that we in Georgia don’t agree with, at least the majority of us do not agree with it,” Ditty said. “Yeah, it’s disappointing that the muscles of Washington are trying to manipulate the state.”
The state Department of Defense said in a statement that same-sex benefits would now be processed at federal National Guard facilities by soldiers on the federal payroll. That means no state offices or employees would be used to handle the documents.
Georgia has two such facilities - at the Fort Benning Armory in Columbus and the Clay National Guard Center in Marietta - that can process same-sex married benefits. They are the only full-time Guard ID card facilities in the state, but automated machines can also handle the IDs.
Gov. Nathan Deal told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the compromise strikes a proper legal balance.
“We are abiding by the constitutional mandate from the state perspective,” he said. “We have strictly advised our National Guard to honor and abide by the constitutional provision and they are doing so.”
While Georgia does not allow same-sex marriage, 16 states and the District of Columbia do. Those couples are eligible to file joint tax returns and access other federal benefits even if they live in a state like Georgia that does not recognize their union.
The National Guard dispute is complicated by its mix of federal and state funding. In this case, only federal funds and employees will be used to process same-sex spouse benefits, according to the National Guard Bureau.
It comes amid new signs of acceptance of gay rights, including a recent AJC poll that showed growing support for same-sex marriage. But some gay rights activists were careful not to overhype the National Guard's reversal, saying it shouldn't be compared with their broader fight for gay marriage rights.
“I’m pleased to see the state of Georgia is going to fall in line with the other states that have these policies in place, but this is not the state of Georgia doing relationship recognition,” said Jeff Graham of Georgia Equality, one of the state’s most powerful gay rights groups. “This is ensuring the men and women in uniform are able to access the federal benefits that is their right.”
