With gay leaders, government officials, and Vice President Joe Biden standing beside him in the White House Oval Office, President Obama Wednesday signed a presidential memorandum granting a limited number of federal employee benefits to same-sex partners of federal workers.
Noting that his action provided as many employee related benefits to LGBT federal workers as possible under the constraints of existing laws, the president said the memorandum "marks a historic step towards the changes we seek" for LGBT federal workers through legislation pending in Congress.
"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.
"In consultation with Secretary of State Clinton, as well as [U.S. Office of Personnel Management] Director John Berry, my administration has completed a long and thorough review to identify a number of areas where we can extend federal benefits to the same-sex partners of Foreign Service and executive branch government employees," the president said.
"I'm requesting that Secretary Clinton and Director Berry do so where possible under existing law – and that the heads of all executive departments and agencies conduct reviews to determine where they may do the same," he said.
The president gave the pen he used to sign the memorandum to veteran D.C. gay rights leader Frank Kameny, who stood at his side during the ceremony. Standing on Obama's opposite side was Vice President Biden.
Others standing nearby were gay U.S. Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.); Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), the lead Senate sponsor of a bill that would provide full federal employee benefits to partners of gay federal workers; and Berry, considered the administration's highest ranking gay appointee.
Others standing behind the president during the ceremony were Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign; Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force; Leonard Hirsch, president of Federal GLOBE, an LGBT federal employees association; Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Equality Council, which advocates for LGBT families; Lorilyn 'Candy' Holmes, a lesbian career federal employee; and Fred Hochberg, president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States and another of the president's high-ranking gay appointees.
Prior to the president's Oval Office ceremony, the White House released a statement listing the benefits the administration has identified as those that can be offered to partners of gay or lesbian federal workers under existing law. Among those identified for civil service employees are long-term care insurance and the use of sick leave to care for a domestic partner and non-biological, non-adopted child.
According to the White House statement, a separate set of benefits has been identified for same-sex partners of U.S. Foreign Service workers, including use of medical facilities at overseas posts, medical evacuation privileges from such posts, and inclusion of same-sex families in overseas housing allocations.
Noticeably absent from the list is health insurance benefits, something that White House officials said the administration is prohibited from providing to same-sex partners of federal workers without a change in both the civil service personnel statute and the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA.
"Among the steps we have not yet taken is to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act," the president said at the Oval Office ceremony. "I believe it's discriminatory, I think it interferes with states' rights, and we will work with Congress to overturn it," he said.
DOMA, which President Bill Clinton signed, defines marriage under federal law as the union only between one man and one woman and allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. The law also bars the federal government from providing any federal rights and benefits to couples joined in same-sex marriages or other relationships similar to marriage such as civil unions or domestic partnerships.
In addition to calling for the repeal of DOMA, Obama told the Oval Office gathering Wednesday that he strongly supports the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, a bill currently pending in the House and Senate. The measure would provide the same employee benefits to same-sex partners of federal workers that married spouses of federal employees currently receive.
Lieberman is the bill's lead sponsor in the Senate and Baldwin is the lead sponsor in the House.
Gay rights attorney Evan Wolfson, who heads the same-sex marriage advocacy group Freedom To Marry, said congressional passage of the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act would take precedent over DOMA in the area of federal employee benefits. Thus approval of that measure would enable the Obama administration to provide full federal personnel benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees without the repeal of DOMA.
"A more recent bill would undo or at least limit the other one," Wolfson said.
Hirsch of Federal GLOBE said White House officials kept his group informed of the administration's efforts to prepare the presidential memorandum during the past several months. He said the plan all along was to issue the memorandum during LGBT Pride Month in June. He said the memorandum's signing shortly after the administration issued its controversial defense of DOMA in federal court, in response to a lawsuit challenging DOMA, was coincidental.
Hirsch and Solmonese of HRC each called the presidential memorandum a small but important first step in the ongoing effort to provide equal rights and treatment of LGBT people who work for the federal government.
According to Hirsch, a presidential memorandum has the same force of law as a presidential executive order, with the memorandum used more often in federal personnel matters. Hirsch and White House officials noted that some news accounts claiming that a presidential memorandum expires at the end of a president's term in office are incorrect. A presidential memorandum remains in effect indefinitely unless another president rescinds it, just as presidents can rescind executive orders issued by their predecessors.
Solmonese pointed to a statement by Berry in a phone conference for reporters, in which the gay OPM director said the president's memorandum would give him greater authority to prohibit workplace discrimination against LGBT employees.
"Although today's actions are only the beginning in what will be a multi-step process towards achieving real and tangible equality for our community, it is no doubt an important first step," Solmonese said. " We commend President Obama and his administration for taking this action to provide some basic benefits for same-sex partners of federal employees and his endorsement of legislation that would provide domestic partner health benefits."
Kameny is the first known gay person to challenge the federal government after he was fired for being gay from his job as a civilian astronomer with the Army the late 1950s, He called Obama's presidential memorandum an important development.
"There's been a great deal of adverse criticism of the president in recent weeks because people got the feeling that things they wanted to see weren't happening," Kameny said. "My feeling is he made clear that he's on the right side, he's with us, things are moving as fast as he can get them to move, and I feel very satisfied."
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