Same-sex partners qualify for family medical leave, Obama says
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Seattle Gay News
click here to go to the main SGN website
posted Friday, June 25, 2010 - Volume 38 Issue 26 Same-sex partners qualify for family medical leave, Obama saysby Mike Andrew - SGN Staff Writer The Obama administration has issued a new ruling that allows LGBT workers to take family medical leave to care for sick or newborn children of their same-sex domestic partners. The new policy was contained in a formal opinion letter issued June 23 by the Labor Department Wage-and-Hour Division. The administration's ruling tackles a question not explicitly covered by the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act. Under the law, people who work for a company with 50 or more employees are entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a newborn or for a spouse, or child with "a serious health condition." The new ruling says that an employee in a same-sex relationship can qualify for leave to care for the child of his or her partner, even if the worker has not legally adopted the child. Unlike the new family leave rules announced by the Office of Personnel Management on June 14, the administration's latest initiative applies to all workers who are covered by the Family Medical leave Act, not just to federal employees. Federal law does not recognize same-sex relationships - in fact, DOMA explicitly forbids the federal government from doing so - but Labor Department lawyers have concluded that people in such relationships may qualify for family and medical leave when they act as parents, sharing the care and support of a child. "The administration is moving the executive branch to really provide interpretations that will change the lives of millions of [LGBT] people for the better," said Fred Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign. Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the Family Equality Council, estimated that 1 million LGBT families are raising some 2 million children. The new Labor Department policy is that "if you act like a parent, do the work of a parent and raise a child like a parent, then you are a parent for the purpose of the Family and Medical Leave Act," she said. Federal rules are important, Chrisler said, because at present, "states have a hodgepodge of laws on same-sex couples and their relationships to their children." In some states, adoption by same-sex couples is allowed. In others, it is not. And in many states, the law is unclear. Washington state law allows LGBT individuals as well as same-sex couples to adopt children. Obama's orders have relied on the authority of the president to manage the federal government, in the same way that George W Bush used the powers of his office to relax government restrictions on oil-and-gas exploration on federally protected land. Over the past 17 months, the Obama administration has expanded federal rights and benefits for LGBT people, targeting one government restriction after another in an attempt to change public policy while avoiding a confrontation with Republican opponents of equal rights. Scores of federal rules blocking Gay rights have been set aside or reinterpreted by Obama officials. Among the changes: o Gay partners of federal workers now will receive long-term health insurance, access to day care and other benefits. o Federal Housing Authority loans no longer can consider the sexual orientation of applicants. o The Census Bureau plans to report the number of people who report being in a same-sex relationship. o Hospitals must allow Gays to visit their ill partners. And federal child-care subsidies can be used by the children of same-sex domestic partners. Individually, none of the changes is especially dramatic. Taken together, they significantly alter the way LGBT people are viewed by federal law. Some activists continue to be critical of the Obama administration's inability to secure passage of major legislation like EDNA and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal, however. "We still need laws passed that achieve what these minimal efforts attempt to do piecemeal," said Lane Hudson, a Gay activist who disrupted a Bill Clinton speech last year. "The little things that the Beltway crowd pays attention to - and the White House uses to say 'We're making so much progress' - that doesn't translate outside the Beltway," Hudson said. |
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