WASHINGTON — The State Department will offer equal benefits and protections to same-sex partners of American diplomats, according to an internal memorandum Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sent last week to an association of gay and lesbian Foreign Service officers.
Mrs. Clinton said the policy change addressed an inequity in the treatment of domestic partners and would help the State Department recruit diplomats, since many international employers already offered such benefits.
“Like all families, our Foreign Service families come in different configurations; all are part of the common fabric of our post communities abroad,” Mrs. Clinton said in the memorandum, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times by a member of the gay and lesbian association.
“At bottom,” she said, “the department will provide these benefits for both opposite-sex and same-sex partners because it is the right thing to do.”
A senior State Department official confirmed the new policy, though he did not say when it would take effect.
Among the benefits are diplomatic passports, use of medical facilities at overseas posts, medical and other emergency evacuation, transportation between posts, and training in security and languages.
Gay and lesbian diplomats have lobbied the State Department for these benefits for several years. Under current policy, they note, diplomats with domestic partners could be evacuated from a hazardous country by the American government while their partners were left behind.
The State Department had declined to provide some benefits to the partners of diplomats, invoking the Defense of Marriage Act, which limited federal recognition of same-sex unions.
Mrs. Clinton was asked about the issue in February at her first town-hall-style meeting with department employees. “I view this as an issue of workplace fairness, employee retention, and the safety and effectiveness of our embassy communities worldwide,” she said, to applause.
Influential lawmakers also pushed for the changes — even drafting legislation requiring the State Department to offer these benefits — until Mrs. Clinton assured them that she would address the issue.
At a hearing last week on financing for the State Department, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Howard L. Berman, welcomed news of the planned change in policy. Mr. Berman, Democrat of California, introduced a former ambassador to Romania, Michael Guest, who left the Foreign Service in 2007, citing unfair treatment of his partner, Alex Nevarez.
Mrs. Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, appointed the nation’s first openly gay ambassador, James C. Hormel, to serve in Luxembourg. Opposition by Republican senators blocked a vote on the appointment, leading Mr. Clinton to appoint him eventually during a Congressional recess in 1999.
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