The Foreign Service Journal, November 2004

graduates in their 20s, waiting for their security clearances or offers from either State or USAID, and hav- ing grown up in a culture encourag- ing common ground through gay- straight alliances, may soon start to look elsewhere for more attractive compensation and benefits packages. This will inevitably hinder efforts to attract a truly diverse workforce under the Diplomacy Readiness Initiative. Indeed, the Human Rights Campaign’s Work Net project (http:// www.hrc.org/worknet/index.asp) offers abundant evidence that the American private sector is moving rapidly ahead with providing benefits for domestic partners as for those with spouses. Current Foreign Service policy essentially forces employees to be extra creative and find loopholes to address their special concerns. It is ironic that, barely three decades after the abolition of archaic rules barring female Foreign Service personnel from being married at all, heterosex- ual women (and men) must marry their partners to confer on them gov- ernment benefits. At least five straight female colleagues (of differ- ent ages, seniority levels and races) have either decided not to join the N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 15 S P E A K I N G O U T u State and the other foreign affairs agencies are making real progress in creating workplaces that treat all employees fairly. But there is still a long way to go.