The Advocate: Congressman: White House LGBT Announcements Imminent

Congressman: White House LGBT Announcements Imminent
By Kerry Eleveld

California representative Howard Berman predicted in an interview Thursday that the White House would be presenting new information regarding LGBT policies sometime before annual pride celebrations in June.

“I think the White House is preparing to make an announcement on a number of issues,” he said, declining to go into detail. “I’m predicting here, not informing, that by the Stonewall anniversary we will have a very clear picture of what the administration is doing.”

Congressman Berman, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, foreshadowed the announcements during an interview about the Foreign Affairs authorization bill that passed out of his committee Wednesday and will provide new diplomatic and development resources for the State Department.

While the bill included many positive provisions to help address LGBT issues abroad, one section that was struck from the legislation would have ended the practice of excluding domestic partners of foreign service officers from benefits routinely provided to spouses and children, such as access to emergency evacuation support, training and language classes, health care and regional medical units, employment opportunities, consulate services, and visa and relocation support.

Berman said he agreed to remove that section of the bill based on his understanding that both the Obama administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were committed to equalizing treatment for same-sex partners in the very near future. He suggested that declaration might be part of a greater package of policy pronouncements from the White House.

“My expectation with respect to the issues that were originally part of my bill, is that the State Department and the secretary will provide the kinds of benefits that I sought,” he said, adding that he was committed to ending discrimination against gay and lesbian foreign service officers. “If I’m wrong, which I don’t think I am, we still have a ways to go on this bill and we can reverse course.”

Berman referenced a quote from Michael Guest, a gay ambassador who finally resigned in 2007 over the State Department’s discriminatory practices, in which Guest said, “Under current practices, we’re kinder to family pets of foreign service officers than we are to gay partners.” That’s true, Berman said, noting that the country pays for the transportation costs of pets to and from foreign posts and provides evacuation services for pets.

What did make the bill were a series of policies that will empower the State Department to: track violence and discrimination against LGBT people that would be deemed illegal in the United States; encourage and persuade governments of other countries to repeal or reform any laws that criminalize homosexuality or restrict fundamental freedoms of gay individuals or organizations; include in annual human rights reports documentation of violence or discrimination against people based on their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

Representative Berman said some Republican congressmen like Chris Smith and Mike Pence opposed those inclusions in the bill.

“They were torn and conflicted, almost anguished in the debate,” said Berman, “because I don’t think they can or do justify violence against people because of their sexual orientation and I think they no longer seek to defend criminalization of homosexual conduct…. And yet, [those protections are] what they sought to eliminate with their amendments.”

Berman said he was hopeful the bill would reach the House floor for consideration by early June.

Berman: Gay US diplomats to get equal benefits

Personally, I think this is a horrible idea. Regardless of whether or not you can trust that the Secretary will follow through (and I do believe she wants to), by removing it from the legislation, you make it that much easier for a future Secretary to roll back our rights.

Gay US diplomats to get equal benefits: lawmaker

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has promised to provide equal benefits to partners of homosexual US diplomats stationed overseas, a congressman said Wednesday.

Howard Berman, head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had sought to require the State Department to offer benefits such as medical care, transport between postings and security training to partners regardless of sexual orientation.

Berman, in a hearing on funding for the Foreign Service, said he would drop his legislative bid as "it is my expectation, based on very recent conversations, that the Secretary of State will move forward with implementing all of the benefits provided in that provision in the very near future."

The congressman invited to the hearing Michael Guest, the former US ambassador to Romania who in 2007 left the Foreign Service, citing unfair treatment of his partner.

"For 26 years he served our country with distinction and was sadly forced to leave the Foreign Service when he could no longer accept the second-class status accorded his lifetime partner," said Berman, a Democrat from California.

"But I am heartened that soon no more of our best and brightest will be forced to choose between family and country," he said.

The ranking Republican member on the committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, has supported the effort.

Ros-Lehtinen signed a letter to Clinton sent in February by Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin who is openly lesbian, warning the State Department risked losing qualified diplomats unless it provided equality to gay partners.

But another Republican lawmaker criticized a separate part of the bill aimed at promoting gay rights.

The funding bill calls on US diplomats to encourage other countries to revise laws that restrict consensual homosexual relations or limit the freedoms of gay people and groups.

Christopher Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, charged that the bill could force US diplomats to promote policies that go against their religious beliefs.

"Does that make it permissive -- or mandatory -- that they be advocates for the homosexual agenda?" Smith asked.

Under President Barack Obama, the United States has switched gears from the previous George W. Bush administration by supporting a United Nations resolution calling for the global decriminalization of homosexuality.

Homosexuality is punishable by death in seven countries -- Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Digger comments:
And is Christopher Smith saying that he thinks it is acceptable to punish gays with death? It is against his religious beliefs to argue against KILLING gays? And for the record, Christopher Smith spends a lot of time forcing folks in this building to push his religious agenda regardless of their religious beliefs. I believe that makes him a hypocrite.

Right Wing Watch covered the issue, and the Right's response, here.