Texas and Mississippi push back on federal same-sex “spousal” benefits
Logo of the U.S. Mississippi Army and Air Force National Guard. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) English: From wikipedia; originally uploaded to wikipedia by (67 KB) user:MinnesotaNationalGuard 18:57, 11 December 2007 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) AUSTIN, TX , September 4, 2013 ( LifeSiteNews ) – The Texas National Guard this week refused to process applications for same-sex spousal benefits, in defiance of a U.S. Department of Defense order expanding benefits to homosexual couples that took effect Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Mississippi National Guard declined to issue benefits applications to same-sex couples from its state owned offices. Officials in both states said that their refusal to comply with the federal directive stemmed from their states’ constitutional amendments banning same-sex “marriage.” In Mississippi , National Guard spokesman Tim Powell said that while state-owned National Guard offices would not be able to process benefit applications for homosexual coup