Only non-soldiers need apply

President Obama announced today that the federal government would extend benefits (though not full health care coverage) to same-sex partners of all federal employees. Except, of course, for the roughly 2.2 million Americans now serving in the regular military, National Guard, or reserves. If any of them have a same-sex partner, applying for benefits would ...

Walt-Steve-foreign-policy-columnist20
Walt-Steve-foreign-policy-columnist20
Stephen M. Walt
By , a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

President Obama announced today that the federal government would extend benefits (though not full health care coverage) to same-sex partners of all federal employees.

President Obama announced today that the federal government would extend benefits (though not full health care coverage) to same-sex partners of all federal employees.

Except, of course, for the roughly 2.2 million Americans now serving in the regular military, National Guard, or reserves. If any of them have a same-sex partner, applying for benefits would violate "don’t ask don’t tell." Instead of benefits, they’d be discharged. 

I’ve opined on this issue before, but I’d just add that excluding gays from the uniformed military constrains their political options in another way.  Military service is still highly respected in the United States, and it can be a valuable asset for someone running for public office. As the 2008 presidential election showed, prior military service is no guarantee of electoral success. But there are plenty of American politicians (Eisenhower, Powell, Kerry, Inouye, McCain, Sestak, etc.) who owe their political careers to their prior military service, and that route is presently denied to gay Americans. And I’d say an openly gay former Navy SEAL running for public office would dispel a lot of stereotypes.

Stephen M. Walt is a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University. Twitter: @stephenwalt

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