DMW: The Struggle Continues

Dead Men Working had a post yesterday about the struggles LGBT folks in the foreign service continue to face.

The Struggle Continues

I spoke the other day to a former Foreign Service Officer who lost his security clearance for being Gay.

The State Department likes to claim such things don't happen, especially in an age when the Secretary of State is correctly considering extending greater benefits to committed partners of Gay and Lesbian employees, but they do. In this case, in fact, the officer in question was specifically accused of sexual perversion, and his clearance was revoked on that basis.

We spoke the other day because he called to bring to my attention an article in the Washington Post, noting that the home of Franklin Kameny has been designated as a DC Historic Landmark. In 1961, Mr. Kameny filed the first civil rights claim in a U.S. court based on sexual orientation.

In his pivotal lawsuit, Kameny specifically addressed the security clearance issue, asserting that the federal policy calling homosexuals a security risk was "no less illegal and no less odious than discrimination based upon religious or racial grounds." The Supreme Court upheld that assertion.

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You can read the entire post here.