WASHINGTON — State Department officials on Sunday confirmed the authenticity of a draft document announcing that the partners of gay U.S. diplomats will be eligible for many benefits currently denied to them but allowed to the spouses of heterosexual diplomats.
The Bush administration had resisted efforts to treat same-sex partners the same as spouses. Those partners were denied a wide array of benefits, such as paid travel to and from overseas posts, shipments of household effects, visas and diplomatic passports, emergency travel to visit ill or injured partners, and evacuation in case of a security emergency or medical necessity.
Those benefits will be extended to all unmarried domestic partners — both same-sex and heterosexual — under the policy shift to be announced by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in the coming days, according to a draft memo prepared for Clinton’s signature.
The draft was provided to The Washington Post by an official with the organization Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies.
Michelle Schohn, president of the organization, said she had read media reports on the memo and was hopeful the changes would be implemented soon. “It would make great changes in the lives” of gay Foreign Service officers and be “a giant step for equality.”
“Historically, domestic partners of Foreign Service members have not been provided the same training, benefits, allowances, and protections that other family members receive. These inequities are unfair and must end,” Clinton writes. “At bottom, the department will provide these benefits for both opposite-sex and same-sex domestic partners because it is the right thing to do.”
, a website that focuses on gay and lesbian news, first reported on the draft memo.
Still, State Department officials cautioned that the final policy document requires more consultation within the department, including with the union that represents all Foreign Service officers.
The issue achieved prominence in 2007 when a respected ambassador, Michael Guest, resigned in protest after 26 years in the Foreign Service. The rules and regulations, he argued, gave same-sex partners fewer benefits than family pets.
