The Foreign Service Journal, June 2015

18 JUNE 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL A marriage-for-benefits policy could complicate assignment of gay Foreign Service personnel to a range of gay- unfriendly places. to that same understanding by their employer. My involvement with the Council attunes me daily to dangers inmany places around the world that often attach to LGBT individuals. In some cases, the partners of lesbian and gay foreign affairs agency employees hail from countries where these threats are grave. For them, an act of mar- riage—entirely traceable in today’s Internet age—could carry negative consequences, especially for families back home. And just as tabloids already have mali- ciously exposed the identity of gay people in many homophobic countries, surely they could do the same for our own per- sonnel. In that respect, the public aspects of a marriage-for-benefits policy could complicate assignment of gay Foreign Service personnel to a range of gay- unfriendly places. It also would seem to counter the department’s own interest in assuring worldwide availability of talent. No doubt State will pledge to imple- ment any change in policy flexibly, to account for special needs. But once out of the bottle, the genie cannot be put back in. A recorded marriage may be fine in Paris. But in today’s world, might open-source knowledge of that marriage impede an onward assignment else- where? Wider Understanding of Diversity What I find far more troubling about the department’s trial balloon, however, is what it indicates about State’s blind spot in addressing the needs of unmar- ried employees and their families in the multidimensional workforce its “Strong State” agenda is presumably meant to support. To be blunt, tying benefits to mar- riage, rather than to the employee, seems a surprising throwback to … you guessed it, the administration of President George W. Bush. State leaders during his presidency consistently turned back all requests to address LGBT family needs by citing the supposed limitations of the Defense of Marriage Act. Citing that law, of course, was a red herring. Family support is as much a prima facie need for LGBT employees as it is for our straight colleagues, and including partners in the Foreign Affairs Manual’s already-expansive definition of “eligible family members” was an easy and obvious fix. The “eligible family members” solution was one of the recommenda- tions offered by President-elect Barack Obama’s State Department transition team, on which I served. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s early adoption of it led to one of the most strik- ing innovations of the administration’s 2009 domestic partner program: tacit rec- ognition that the department could base the provision of employee benefits on a broad definition of family, rather than on marital status. Six years later, why would the Obama administration retreat to a retrogressive position—again pinning provision of For- eign Service benefits to marriage, rather than embracing, without qualification, all families that accompany our employees abroad? Putting Families First Instead of ending the partner pro- gram, logic would call for its expansion to include all unmarried couples, gay and straight alike. Since leaving our Service, I’ve been privileged to work with, and learn from, talent-support professionals from some of America’s best corporations. Most understand that their job is as much about retaining talent as it is about offer- ing a solid, entry-level job. Innovative policies to match what their companies’ best employees—single or otherwise— need and expect is a preoccupation, not an incidental concern. Great companies pull out stops to make themselves employers of choice. They stay out of the marriage license business, opting instead for “employee Michael Guest on the Jan. 29, 2008, cover of the nation’s leading LGBT newsmagazine, The Advocate.