Same-Sex Partners Get New Benefits
FederalTimes.com
By Stephen Losey
June 22, 2009


President Barack Obama last week extended some benefits to same-sex domestic partners of gay and lesbian federal employees and their domestic partners.

Domestic partners of federal employees can now enroll in the government’s long-term-care insurance program. And gay and lesbian employees will be allowed to use sick leave to care for their domestic partners and their nonbiological, nonadopted children.

The June 17 memo by Obama also extends benefits to partners of State Department Foreign Service officers. Those partners will, for the first time, be able to use medical facilities at posts abroad, be medically evacuated and be counted as part of a diplomat’s family when State determines housing allocations.

Obama’s memo does not cover unmarried heterosexual partnerships “Many of our government’s hard-working, dedicated and patriotic public servants have long been denied basic rights that their colleagues enjoy for one simple reason — the people that they love are of the same sex,” Obama said before signing the memo. “Hundreds of Fortune 500 companies already offer such benefits, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because they recognize that it helps them compete for and retain the best possible talent. And we need top talent serving their country right now more than ever.”

But Obama stopped short of giving domestic partners two major benefits: access to their partners’ federal health care or retirement benefits. In a conference call with reporters, Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry said the Defense of Marriage Act prevents the government from extending those benefits to employees’ partners.

The White House supports a bill before Congress, sponsored by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Reps. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., that would legislatively grant those benefits to employees’ domestic partners. Obama reiterated his promise to work with Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

“This is a first step, not a final step,” OPM’s Berry said. “It’s an attempt to get our federal house in order. The gay community, of which I’m a member, can be proud that the president stands 100 percent with us.”

Berry also said OPM will issue guidance in 90 days outlawing discrimination in the federal government against gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender employees.

“A bedrock principle of federal civil service is that the employer doesn’t make decisions based on anything other than the individual’s ability to do the job,” Berry said. “That’s why it’s called merit-based civil service.” T

he president’s memo orders all agencies to review their benefits and extend to same-sex partners any additional benefits the law might allow.

The University of California, Los Angeles’ Williams Institute, which studies sexual orientation law and policy, last year found there are more than 30,000 gay and lesbian federal employees with domestic partners who are not themselves federal employees.

Berry said some managers already allow gay and lesbian employees to take sick leave to care for their partners. He said his former boss at the Smithsonian Institution allowed him time off to care for his former partner, who died of AIDS in 1996. But, he said, not all supervisors allow such leave, which is why the government needed to clearly spell out that family leave policies apply to gay and lesbian employees.

Leonard Hirsch, president of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender federal employee advocacy group Federal GLOBE, applauded the White House’s action and said he hopes action on health and retirement benefits will follow.

“It is breaking a logjam,” Hirsch said.

But Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said the memo could violate the Defense of Marriage Act and said his group may challenge the benefit extension.

“We will review the order and confer with our legal counsel to determine an appropriate response,” Perkins said in a statement. “President Obama is clearly using this executive order to single out a single group for special preferences.”

OPM has estimated that full domestic partner benefits for gay and lesbian employees, including health and retirement benefits, would cost the government $670 million over 10 years.

But OPM said June 18 that extending long-term care and leave benefits will not cost the government anything because employees cover the cost of their own long-term care through premiums, and employees would not receive any additional leave to care for partners beyond the sick leave they have already accrued.

OPM expects it will take a few weeks to publish proposed regulations in the Federal Register extending the benefits to same-sex partners.

OPM has not decided how it will determine whether an employee’s relationship qualifies as a domestic partnership, but said it is considering having employees sign an affidavit, similar to the system outlined in Lieberman’s bill that would extend health and retirement benefits.

Lieberman’s bill, if passed, would require an employee to file an affidavit identifying his or her partner and swearing that they are each other’s sole partner and intend to remain so indefinitely, that they live together and intend to continue living together, and that both are at least 18 years old and unrelated.

Some agencies don’t plan to wait for official guidance from OPM regarding the president’s order.

Jim McDermott, chief human capital officer at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said his agency will “get creative” to accommodate a gay or lesbian employee who needs time to care for a sick partner before the official guidance is in place.

McDermott doesn’t expect the process of implementing the benefits will be difficult.

“It won’t be a big deal as far as cost or anything else,” McDermott said. “We’re accustomed to being family friendly.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a June 18 statement that the department plans to update its foreign affairs manual and regulations to include same-sex domestic partners and the biological children of employees’ same-sex domestic partners.

State already plans to require employees to file an affidavit identifying their same-sex partners. State will allow partners to obtain diplomatic passports, be included on travel orders to and from posts abroad and have their belongings shipped, receive security training at the Foreign Service Institute, and receive family member preference for employment at posts abroad.

Clinton said State will try to convince foreign governments to provide same-sex partners the same diplomatic visas, privileges and immunities that diplomats’ spouses already receive.