Gay and Lesbian Leaders Say Federal Same-Sex Benefits Don’t Go Far Enough - NYTimes.com

Gay and Lesbian Leaders Say Federal Same-Sex Benefits Don’t Go Far Enough - NYTimes.com

By JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON — The package of domestic partnership benefits that President Obama established for federal workers on Wednesday drew the loudest protests from some of those it was intended to help, gay men and lesbians who criticized the move as too timid.

The administrative memorandum extending some partnership rights to federal workers in same-sex relationships, which Mr. Obama signed late Wednesday, allows administration personnel to take leave to care for sick partners and requires the government to recognize their partners as household members when determining overseas housing allocations for State Department employees, among other things.

But several of the nation’s most prominent gay and lesbian political leaders quickly attacked the president for failing to extend full health care benefits to the same-sex partners of federal workers, questioning the administration’s explanation that it is precluded from doing so by the Defense of Marriage Act, which Mr. Obama had vowed to repeal during his presidential campaign.

Their outcry put the administration on the defensive for an action it had hoped would help address increasing complaints from gay activists who supported Mr. Obama’s election but now say he is ignoring the issues he promised to address, like a repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gay men and lesbians in the military. And it has tested the balance the administration has tried to strike between avoiding hot-button cultural issues that could distract it from pushing its ambitious economic agenda and avoiding angering key liberal constituencies that expect Mr. Obama to make good on campaign promises.

Fueling the protest, the president’s move came just days after the administration filed a legal brief defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act — which defines marriage as between a man and a woman only — in a case challenging the law.

“I think it’s insulting,” David Mixner, a prominent gay rights advocate, said of the new benefits plan. “Without minimizing how it will improve lives to some extent, what they said to us today is we will give you family leave, some things like that, but the most important thing, health care, we’re not giving you.”

Mr. Mixner announced earlier this week that he was boycotting a coming fund-raiser being hosted by the Democratic Party’s gay and lesbian committee and featuring Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. because of what he considers the administration’s inaction on gay issues, and he said the president’s memorandum had not changed his mind.

Speaking from the Oval Office on Wednesday, Mr. Obama said the memorandum — which represents his interpretation of existing law — represented just a start. “This is only one step,” Mr. Obama said. “Unfortunately, my administration is not authorized by existing federal law to provide same-sex couples with the full range of benefits enjoyed by heterosexual married couples.”

Mr. Obama said he would indeed work to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, calling it “discriminatory.” He also announced his support for legislation that would extend full health care benefits to federal workers, a measure whose sponsors include Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, and Representative Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, both of whom stood behind the president Wednesday afternoon.

Earlier, John Berry, the administration’s director of personnel management, noted that the memorandum would extend some health-related benefits to same-sex couples. For instance, Mr. Berry said, United States medical facilities overseas would now be open to the partners of State Department employees.

But during an occasionally contentious conference call with reporters, Mr. Berry acknowledged that some federal supervisors were already conferring some of the benefits the administration was presenting as new. He did so after a blogger on the call, John Aravosis, told him about a note on his AmericaBlog Web site from a Defense Department employee, Lisa Polyak, who said the Army had allowed her to take sick leave to care for a same-sex partner, and nonbiological child, under existing provisions.

Mr. Berry said, however, that Mr. Obama’s memorandum would ensure that such decisions would not vary among supervisors.

“Not every supervisor is similarly situated,” he said. “What the president is doing today is he is making this no longer optional; he is making this mandatory.”

He did not address accusations from some gay and lesbian activists that the Defense of Marriage Act, which does not directly address domestic partnership rights, did not in fact preclude the administration from extending full health benefits to the same-sex partners of its employees.

But late Wednesday, Elaine Kaplan, general counsel for the office of personnel management, said federal statutes dictated that many vital health care benefits be conferred only to “spouses” and children of federal employees, effectively making it a benefit of marriage as defined by the marriage act. Ms. Kaplan said the new legislation the president is supporting would remedy that prohibition. In the meantime, she said, his memorandum would cover those benefits that do not fall under the more restrictive statutory language.

The debate resulted in a muddled message that added to the White House’s struggles on gay issues this week.

When news leaked out Tuesday night that the president would extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, some gay and lesbian leaders mistakenly took that to include health insurance and said they were let down to learn otherwise.

Mr. Obama’s comments late Wednesday served to ameliorate some of the initial confusion and dismay. For instance, Brad Levenson, a federal public defender in California who is waging a well-publicized fight to secure health benefits for his husband, expressed anger earlier in the day at the more limited scope of the memorandum, saying it fell short of what he had been led to believe the previous evening. Mr. Levenson called back later to say he took Mr. Obama at his word that he would keep trying to do more.

But gay and lesbian activists said suspicion remained that the president was trying to put their issues on the back burner to avoid the sort of furor that former President Bill Clinton faced when he announced early in his term that military recruiters would no longer ask applicants if they were homosexual.

“They decided early on that these gay issues were going to be trouble, and they decided to avoid them,” said Richard Socarides, an adviser to the Clinton administration on gay issues. “I think now they’re paying a much steeper price than they ever thought they’d have to.”

Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting.