Can President Obama catch a break on
gay issues? Apparently not. Social conservatives are also mad at
the president for signing an executive order extending certain
benefits to the spouses of gay and lesbian federal employees, calling
it “marriage light.”
Wednesday's memorandum offers federal
employees sick leave to take care of a sick partner or a
non-biological child, but partners remain blocked from access to
primary health insurance and pensions. Obama did grant access to a
government health insurance program that pays for long-term health
conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.
But gay activists, who've been on a
slow
burn all spring over the president's gay rights jitters, called
the move too little, too late. Several gay leaders went so far as to
call it an insult.
“It makes a mockery. It's an
insult,” prominent gay activist David Mixner said Wednesday on
National Public Radio.
Social conservatives were also angry at
the president for signing the memorandum, calling it a sneaky way of
legalizing gay unions.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family
Research Council, called the new benefits illegal, and threatened
legal action.
The president's memo “appears to be a
violation of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and clearly violates
the spirit of the federal law which defines marriage as the legal
union of one man and one woman as husband and wife,” Perkins said
in a statement. “[It] uses taxpayer money to placate an angry
portion of his base at the expense of the rule of law. Ironically,
Mr. Obama has pursued an aggressive pro-homosexual agenda – but his
actions to date are, apparently, insufficient for the radical
homosexuals pushing their extreme agenda.”
“Barack Obama's order … attempts to
elevate relationships outside of marriage as if they are the same as
marriage,” Concerned Women for America President Wendy Wright said
in a statement. “Marriage provides unique benefits to individuals,
families, and society that cannot be replicated by any other living
arrangements. Marriage helps nurture children and reduces social and
financial costs to society by promoting healthy behavior. Federal
funds should not be a political tool to elevate partner arrangements
to be treated similar to marriage.”