State Department grants extensive rights to same-sex couples
While the U.S. Supreme Court deliberates the constitutionality of same-sex marriages, over at the State Department, same-sex partners of employees and foreign diplomats have gotten a number of rights during the Obama administration. At Thursday’s State Department press briefing, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland explained that beyond the provisions expanding rights for LGBT State Department employees and ...
While the U.S. Supreme Court deliberates the constitutionality of same-sex marriages, over at the State Department, same-sex partners of employees and foreign diplomats have gotten a number of rights during the Obama administration.
While the U.S. Supreme Court deliberates the constitutionality of same-sex marriages, over at the State Department, same-sex partners of employees and foreign diplomats have gotten a number of rights during the Obama administration.
At Thursday’s State Department press briefing, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland explained that beyond the provisions expanding rights for LGBT State Department employees and American passport seekers, over the last four years the State Department has also expanded the rights and services available to same-sex partners of State Department employees, Foreign Service officers, and U.S.-based diplomats from around the world.
For example, the State Department extends the "full range of legally available benefits and allowances" to same-sex partners of Foreign Service officers and considers them "official family members" with regard to such benefits.
"We are committed to doing everything possible within the law to ensure equality," Nuland said. "This includes on overseas postings issuing diplomatic passports for U.S. citizens, inclusion on employee travel orders to and from post of same-sex partners, use of medical facilities at posts abroad, medical evacuation services, training at the Foreign Service Institute and consideration for employment in family-member jobs and other jobs available at post for domestic partners."
Same-sex partners of State Department employees in the United States are able to use their partner’s benefits related to long-term care insurance, regular sick leave, which includes caring for a domestic partner following childbirth, access to information and referral services for things like long-term medical care, and the "Diplotots" child care.
"However, under the Defense of Marriage Act, same-sex domestic partners do not have access to federal programs like health insurance," Nuland noted.
Same-sex partners of foreign diplomats can also now qualify as an "immediate family member" of a foreign government official who is going to be posted in the United States for the purposes of getting a visa, so long as their home country recognizes the partner as an immediate family member first.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made LGBT rights a key initiative of her tenure in Foggy Bottom, and the State Department also has a webpage up giving short biographies of several LGBT employees in honor of the first official LGBT awareness month in 2010.
Clinton issued a statement that year saying, "Human rights are the inalienable right of every person, no matter who that person is or who that person loves."
Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.
Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.
A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.
Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin
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