WASHINGTON -- Liz Matzinger works for NASA but gets her medical coverage from Montgomery County. The reason: The Maryland school district offers health insurance benefits to same-sex partners and the federal government doesn't.
President Barack Obama took a modest step Wednesday night to remedy that disparity. He issued a memorandum intended to clarify the government's antidiscrimination and job-benefit policies. But he stopped short of giving gay partners of federal employees the same level of benefits that opposite-sex spouses receive because current law forbids it.
As a result, his action, which some saw as a hasty response to growing criticism from gay supporters, got a decidedly chilly response from one of those it was intended to impress.
"Anything less than full health insurance is just not good enough. ... I think a lot of us are very angry," said Matzinger, 29, an aerospace engineer at the Goddard Space Flight Center who enthusiastically backed Obama in the election last year.
In a brief Oval Office ceremony, Obama said he would "work tirelessly" to expand the rights of gay Americans.
Obama said his memo would require supervisors to grant federal workers sick leave to care for domestic partners, a privilege that they already enjoy but often must depend on a boss's whim to use. Domestic partners of federal employees could be added to the long-term care insurance program, according to a White House fact sheet.
The president announced his support for legislation that would give same-sex partners of federal workers the same benefits that opposite-sex spouses receive. And he said he'd work with Congress to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, though he stopped short of saying he'd propose legislation to repeal it.
Gay-rights organizations erupted last week after learning that the Justice Department had filed a brief in support of the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, which provides that the federal government will honor only marriages between a man and a woman. The Obama administration has said that until the law is changed, the government would continue to defend it in court.
The president campaigned on a pledge to overturn the law and the military's "don't ask, don't tell" rules.
