Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is being urged to start expanding all benefits and recognition to the families, partners, and spouses of gay members of the military.
Aubrey Sarvis of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network wrote an open letter to Panetta, calling for immediate action to expand such benefits, as the one-year anniversary approaches of the Defense Department issuing its guidelines on "don't ask, don't tell" repeal.
“The repeal of 'don't ask, don’t tell,' while an historic victory for equality, has created two classes of service members in the U.S. military—those who receive all available benefits and support and those who don’t" Sarvis said in a statement Monday. "Secretary Panetta has the clear authority, within the confines of the law, to make same-gender married couples and their families eligible to take part in some of the programs that are available to all other service members, even while the Defense of Marriage Act is still on the books."
Earlier this month, the military announced its Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program. The program ensures that if a member of the military is sexually assaulted, that person and his or her family should also have the opportunity to go to counseling. Sarvis applauded the program in his letter, but said this initiative excludes the same-sex partners of gay, lesbian, and bisexual service personnel.
"While we applaud your efforts to expand this program to cover many more people in the military family, we are troubled that it continues this same sort of discrimination," in a followup to a similar letter sent to Panetta in August
Other benefits and programs that exclude LGB service members with same-sex parters include joint duty assignments, family center programs, and military family housing.
If the military did this, all
If the military did this, all federal agencies would have to. You can't have certain people violating a federal law and others not.
Benefits for LGBT servicemember families
Actually, the DoD has the authority to adapt its regulations to be inclusive of same sex partners/spouses for some benefits, such as access to base housing, command sponsorship, and base shopping at commissaries/exchanges. So far it has failed to update its regulations and left LGBT military families to fend for themselves. Some benefits such as health insurance however are granted specifically by Congress and are defined to specific dependents and therefore are restricted by DOMA.
If you are the partner/spouse of an LGBT servicemember or veteran, join us at the American Military Partner Association at militarypartners.org
DOMA needs to go
This is so true. Thanks to DOMA legally married same-sex military spouses are denied health insurance, commissary, housing allowance and other base privileges as compared to their opposite-sex married counterparts. For those interested - http://OUTmilitary.com has been providing a supportive environment for friending, sharing and networking between Gay active military, vets and supporters since December, 2010.
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