U.S. to Extend Its Job Benefits to Gay Partners

U.S. to Extend Its Job Benefits to Gay Partners
By JEFF ZELENY
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/us/politics/17gays.html?_r=1&th&emc=th


President Obama will sign a presidential memorandum on Wednesday to extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, administration officials said Tuesday evening, but he will stop short of pledging full health insurance coverage.

Mr. Obama, in an Oval Office announcement, is expected to offer details about which benefits will be provided. It is the most significant statement he has made on gay issues, and it comes as he faces intense criticism from several gay rights leaders over what they suggest has been a failure to live up to campaign promises in the first months of his presidency.

Mr. Obama will be weighing in for the first time on one of the most delicate social and political issues of the day: whether the government must provide benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. While he will announce a list of benefits, officials said, they are not expected to include broad health insurance coverage, which could require legislation to achieve.

The initial reaction from some gay rights advocates was mixed.

“Extending benefits to partners of gay federal employees is terrific, but at this point he is under enormous pressure from the gay civil rights community for having promised the moon and done nothing so far,” Richard Socarides, an adviser to the Clinton administration on gay issues, said Tuesday evening. “So more important now is what he says tomorrow about the future for gay people during his presidency.”

The breadth and scope of the memorandum to be signed by Mr. Obama was being completed Tuesday evening, said administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid upstaging the president’s announcement on Wednesday.

As a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama vowed to “fight hard” for the rights of gay couples. As a senator, he sponsored legislation that would have provided health benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.

But President Obama and his advisers have been reluctant to wade deeply into divisive issues like overturning a ban on openly gay military members or extending benefits to partners of government employees, fearful that such moves could overtake the administration’s broader agenda.

He has sent private assurances, several activists have said, that he intends to do more in coming years. But some gay groups have grown impatient with the wary stance of the White House, particularly as a growing number of state legislatures have taken up the question of same-sex marriage and other issues important to gay men and lesbians.

In considering whether to extend health benefits to same-sex partners, Mr. Obama confronted divided legal opinions.

In California, two federal appeals court judges said that employees of their court were entitled to health benefits for their same-sex partners under the program that insures millions of federal workers. But the federal Office of Personnel Management has instructed insurers not to provide the benefits ordered by the judges, citing a 1996 law, the Defense of Marriage Act.

Joe Solmonese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, wrote an angry letterto the White House on Monday about a decision by the administration to file a legal brief supporting the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.

“As an American, a civil rights advocate, and a human being, I hold this administration to a higher standard than this brief,” Mr. Solmonese wrote. “In the course of your campaign, I became convinced — and I still want to believe — that you do, too.”

The brief, filed in federal court last week, was in response to a lawsuit arguing that the marriage act is unconstitutional.

A White House spokesman said that it was standard practice for the administration to back laws that are challenged in court — even those it does not agree with — and that the president “wants to see a legislative repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.” Mr. Obama repeatedly backed repealing the act during his presidential campaign.

With the administration’s decision to stop short of extending full health insurance benefits or calling for legislation to do so, it remained an open question how significant the presidential announcement would be, Mr. Socarides said.

But administration officials said the timing of the announcement was intended to help contain the growing furor among gay rights groups. Several gay donors withdrew their sponsorship of a Democratic National Committee fund-raising event next week, where Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is scheduled to speak.

Kate Phillips and Bernie Becker contributed reporting from Washington.