Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, when sworn into office, promised to “offend the Constitution of the United States.” She’s offending all right:
“In September, Fallin vowed to prohibit Oklahoma’s National Guard from providing benefits to married same-sex couples, directly violating a Pentagon directive and a presidential decree. Now, after a Pentagon pushback, Fallin has doubled down, cutting spousal benefits for the entire Oklahoma National Guard, including straight couples. The Republican governor, in other words, would rather deny every soldier benefits than grant a few gay ones the rights they have been federally guaranteed.” Read more here.
Maybe reading the US Constitution might help you understand what she is doing.
She is NOT offending the US Constitution. Amendment 10 makes it clear that she should be upholding her own state constitution. She doesn’t work for President Obama. She works for the people of Oklahoma.
Nowhere in the US Constitution is there justification for benefits to military personnel or gay couples or actually anyone. Benefits are part of extra-Constitutional government. The presidential order you invoke isn’t allowed by the Constitution. It’s debateable whether the Pentagon directive is. Our Founders would be shocked at how far the Supreme Court has drifted from its original mandate. They were never supposed to reinterpret the Constitution. They were supposed to weigh whether new laws were allowed under the Constitution and order those that weren’t ended. Nothing more.
I wasn’t a fan of Gov. Fallin, but I’m starting to think she might actually be doing what the people of Oklahoma hired her to do — defend the Constitution of Oklahoma.