LGBT Gains

For years the homosexual community has celebrated Gay Pride during the month of June. This year, for the first time, there was an official presidential proclamation declaring June Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month. In his June 1^st  Proclamation, President Obama committed his Administration to aggressively support the top items on the homosexuals' wish list. Gay advocacy groups have publicly complained about the pace at which this administration has addressed their issues. In June, the president  took some steps to remedy that situation. 

He signed a memorandum that gives same-sex domestic partners of federal employees access to long term insurance benefits.  He was criticized by gay groups for stopping short of guaranteeing full health insurance to such partners. A bill winding its way through both houses of Congress will do that and more, extending to the same-sex partners of  federal employees the benefits married spouses already enjoy.

 The aforementioned presidential memorandum also allows civil servants to take sick leave to care for ailing domestic partners. Plus, the memo extends limited benefits to the same sex partners of Foreign Service officers including the use of medical facilities and medical evacuation services at posts abroad. Homosexual Foreign Service officers will also be allowed to include their partners when considering the family allocation for housing abroad. Sending U.S. Ambassadors and their gay partners into other countries, to live as married, exports an expansive definition of family, one most Americans do not embrace. And each of these benefits forces the taxpayer to, in some way, support homosexual unions. Still, the homosexual community says Obama is not doing enough on their behalf. 

 Also in June, the U.S. Justice Department changed a policy and will now allow homosexual individuals to use their same sex partners' surnames when applying for passports.

As piecemeal and limited as these actions seem to homosexual activists, they infuriate conservatives who say they undermine marriage and are in direct violation of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. "The presidential memorandum is just a start," President Obama said at the signing. "Unfortunately," he continued, "my administration is not authorized by existing federal law to provide the full range of benefits enjoyed by heterosexual married couples."

That "existing law" is DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996 and signed by President Clinton. DOMA defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman and protects states from having to recognize same sex marriages from another state. President Obama has pledged to work with Congress to see it repealed.

As June wound to a close the president honored the gay-activist movement at the White House, celebrating the Stonewall Riots, the birth of the gay activist movement.  The event was held in the East Room where previous presidents celebrated the National Day of Prayer.  President Obama could not even send one representative to this year's Capitol Hill prayer gathering. How disappointing.