State's Non-Response Response

Here is the response Representative Tammy Baldwin's office received to the letter she and four other members of Congress sent to the Secretary two months ago. (You can read Baldwin's letter here.)

Dear Ms. Baldwin:

Thank you for your letter of February 21 regarding the State Department's treatment of gay and lesbian Foreign Service Officers and their partners.

The Department hires, recruits, assigns, and promotes employees without regard to sexual orientation. To this end, we treat same-sex and opposite-sex unmarried partners of U.S. Government employees stationed abroad in an equivalent manner.

The Department affords certain benefits, as set forth within the personnel section of the Foreign Affairs Manual (at 3 FAM 4180), to the unmarried partners of employees, regardless of their sexual orientation. For the unmarried partners of employees overseas, those benefits include assistance in obtaining appropriate residency permits and travel visas in accordance with local law, consideration for Mission employment if legal requirements are met, inclusion in the Mission warden system and Mission phone book, and inclusion on the same basis as spouses in all events sanctioned by Missions.

The Director General announced in February that the Security Overseas Seminar, a two-day course at the Foreign Service Institute that is mandatory for all employees prior to their first overseas assignment, would be open to all family members and members of household, including unmarried partners. The Department extended access to securify training to members of households in the firm belief that they can be at risk because of their association with us and, as residents of our households and participants in the Embassy community, can positively contribute to our collective safety.

We hope that this information has been helpful to you. Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of further assistance.

One has to wonder why it took two months to come up with this non-response.

But let's read between the lines: "The Department hires, recruits, assigns, and promotes employees without regard to sexual orientation. To this end, we treat same-sex and opposite-sex unmarried partners of U.S. Government employees stationed abroad in an equivalent manner." This means that the Department does NOT treat same-sex partners they way they treat opposite-sex "married" partners. In other words, we would treat you the same as married partners if you were married, but you aren't. Oh wait, and you can't be. Except if you are from Massachusetts. But even then, we will treat you as though you are not married.

"For the unmarried partners of employees overseas, those benefits include assistance in obtaining appropriate residency permits and travel visas in accordance with local law, consideration for Mission employment if legal requirements are met, inclusion in the Mission warden system and Mission phone book, and inclusion on the same basis as spouses in all events sanctioned by Missions." Actually, something is missing here. The FAM "encourages" but does not require chiefs of mission to do these things. Examples are plentiful of people getting no help, and occassionally being hindered, in their attempts to get visas for their partners. And by "if legal requirements are met" for Mission employment for partners, they mean IF there is no eligible family member who wants the job, regardless of whether they are more qualified. Even then, the job has to be posted to all the ex-pat community there. So while EFMs get preference for employment, partners get no preference even above the community of Americans living in country regardless of their tie to the Mission. "Inclusion in the Mission warden system" is a requirement for ALL Americans in country. And "inclusion on the same basis as spouses in all events sanctioned by Missions" is, again, at Chief of Mission discretion.

Yes, the Department is now allowing our partners to sit in the heretofore unoccupied seats in the Security Overseas Seminar. This is a good step, but far from enough. There is far more that they could do. But they are clearly not interested.