On a mid-November evening, a group of D.C. bureaucrats gathered at the Cannon House Office Building to remember the “gay rights pioneer,” who, reported the Associated Press, “is credited with staging the first gay rights protests in front of the White House and Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. He had been fired from his job as a government astronomer for being gay. Kameny took that case to the Supreme Court 50 years ago.”
John Berry, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, told the gathering — which included White House staffers, Congressmen, and a Yale Law School professor — that Kameny was responsible for blazing the trail “that I and countless others followed into public service.” Berry, who in 2009 became the Obama administration’s highest level homosexual appointee, told the assembled group that Kameny’s “unrelenting and unceasing fight for gay rights enabled other Americans to step out of the closet and into the full light of equality. But most importantly, his long battle and eventual triumphs show the miracles that one person wrought upon the world.”
While Berry may be one of the most high-profile homosexuals serving in the Obama administration, he is by no means the only one. According to the Washington Post, no less than 200 “LGBT presidential appointees serve under President Obama, among them the first two who are openly transgender.” Additionally, thanks to Obama’s aggressive efforts on their behalf, “gay men and lesbians can serve openly in the armed forces. Intrusive questions about sex lives have been purged from security-clearance vettings.”
In fact, according to a 2010 survey by the National Center for Marriage and Family Research (NCMFR), Washington, D.C. has the most same-sex-couple households in the nation, representing a hefty 31 percent of the city’s unmarried households. With a high percentage of those same-sex couples having bachelor’s degrees (compared to their heterosexual counterparts) and trending toward professional careers, it is a given that this influx of “gay” workers to D.C. has filled an increasing number of positions in the burgeoning federal government — which, at some two million individuals, is the nation’s largest employer.
While such obstacles as the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” have hindered homosexual federal employees full access to the benefits afforded traditional married couples, the Obama administration has conducted a high-profile campaign to change that. Besides leading the campaign that repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and gave homosexuals nearly unfettered access to even the most sensitive military positions, Obama officials have been hard at work chipping away “at one of the biggest obstacles to equality for same-sex partners: the lack of access to more than 1,100 benefits that come with marriage,” reported the Washington Post. “LGBT civil servants can now take leave to care for sick partners and visit them in the hospital; gay couples can get relocation benefits and child-care services. Transgender federal employees are protected by anti-discrimination laws.”
Nonetheless, DOMA, which defines marriage in federal business as only between a man and a woman, blocks “gay” employees from receiving full benefits for their homosexual partners. This is particularly galling as they witness private corporations bending over backward to offer spousal benefits to their homosexual employees.
According to the most recent Corporate Equality Index, an annual survey of “gay friendly” companies put together by the pro-homosexual Human Rights Campaign, 337 companies (of 615 total) received 100 percent positive ratings for having employment policies that favor homosexuals and their partners. Collectively, those companies account for 8.3 million full-time employees and include such giants as Coca-Cola, AT&T, Delta Airlines, Land O’Lakes, Kellogg, Hershey, Campbell’s Soup, Starbucks, Ford, General Motors, Apple, and Microsoft.
In order to achieve a perfect score on the index, reported Baptist Press News, “companies had to meet six standards, including: 1) offering diversity training covering sexual orientation and gender identity, 2) having a non-discrimination policy covering sexual orientation and gender identity, 3) providing domestic partner health insurance benefits, and 4) offering at least one insurance benefit for employees wanting to change their sex.” BP News noted that “gender identity” category “includes cross dressers and, when fully implemented, allows for men to use women’s restrooms, and vice versa.”
While DOMA continues for the moment to keep the federal government from matching the private sector in gender “equality,” an increasing army of “LGBT” federal employees has led to the creation of a network of homosexual interest groups dedicated to pushing the envelope for “gays” in government. Such special interest fraternities as DOJ Pride, the Federal Equality Council, the DoD’s Fed Globe, Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies, and even an activist group in the Department of Homeland Security, appear to be making the granting of full benefits for homosexual employees and their partners a nearly all-encompassing obsession.
“The glass is a third full,” Diego Sanchez, a “transgender” aide to homosexual Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), complained to the Washington Post of the ground gained by “gay” federal employees. “We need to step up the pace.”
Marc Salans, president of DOJ Pride, told the Washington Post that dealing with DOMA is the “next tier” problem for gay federal employees. “What do we do about family benefits?” asked Salans, who claims 13-year-old twins with his homosexual partner, a DOJ attorney. “We are butting our heads against DOMA.”
In addition to President Obama, who has refused his responsibility to defend the federal marriage law, homosexual employees have an ally in Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who is aggressively pushing her proposed Respect for Marriage Act, which would effectively rescind DOMA and legalize homosexual marriage for federal purposes.
While, as reported by The New American, there is no danger of the bill’s passage in this Congress, Feinstein promised that she would keep hammering away until her measure becomes law. “Virtually any advance in civil rights or any kind of rights has been carried by the Democratic Party,” she said. “It’s just a fact. So, we’ll just march on. We’ll continue this. And if I have to reintroduce it next session, I’ll reintroduce it. Session after that, I’ll reintroduce it.”
Photo of Frank Kameny: AP Images
