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Legislation Promotes Equal Partner Benefits, LGBT Rights Abroad
Foreign Service Authorization Passed in Committee and Government-wide Partner Benefits Bill Introduced |
| Washington, DC - Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies (GLIFAA) expresses strong support for the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations (DPBO) bill introduced yesterday in the U.S. House of Representatives by Representives Tammy Baldwin and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and in the U.S. Senate by Senators Susan Collins and Joseph Lieberman. The proposed legislation would extend equal benefits -- including those related to pensions, access to health insurance, and family medical leave -- to the same-sex partners of U.S. federal government personnel.
These measures would serve to help the U.S. government recruit and retain the best and the brightest individuals and compete with the private sector where over 50 percent of Fortune 500 companies in the United States also provide benefits to same-sex partners.
GLIFAA also endorses the House Foreign Affairs Committee for Wednesday's passage of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011 (H.R. 2410) that provides specific direction to the State Department to advocate for the decriminalization of homosexuality in U.S. foreign policy. Congressman Howard Berman also intended to include authorizing text that would have provided full benefits to same-sex partners working in the foreign service. Berman pulled this language out of the bill only after repeated assurances from the Obama Administration that equality would be extended in the "very near future."
"I am deeply committed to ending the long-standing practice of treating the committed partners of gay and lesbian Foreign Service officers like second-class citizens," Berman said. "I would not agree to strike a provision in my own bill if I did not feel confident that this would be taken care of by the Administration."
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the Committee, also favored the language. Ros-Lehtinen co-signed a letter to Secretary Clinton sent in February by Representative Tammy Baldwin warning the State Department risked losing qualified diplomats unless it provided equality to gay partners.
GLIFAA also applauds key provisions in the Authorization Act that would raise attention on human rights abuses on the bases of gender identity and gender expression. GLIFAA hopes that gender identity and gender expression will soon be included in non-discrimination policies for employees at the State Department and all foreign affairs agencies.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) foreign service, civil service, and contract personnel serve their country domestically and at U.S. Embassies and Missions around the world, including some of the most challenging posts in Afghanistan and Iraq. GLIFAA looks to changes in Administration policy as well as legislation to ensure these personnel would no longer have to make the difficult choice between family and public service.
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GLIFAA, officially recognized by the U.S. State Department, represents lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) personnel and their families in the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Foreign Commercial Service, Foreign Agricultural Service, and other foreign affairs agencies and offices in the U.S. Government. Founded in 1992 by fewer than a dozen employees who faced official harassment simply because of their sexual orientation, GLIFAA continues to seek equality and fairness for LGBT employees and their families.
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