May 29, 2009  |  By: Joshua Lynsen  | COMMENTS     

State Department plans to extend a number of new benefits to the domestic partners of Foreign Service officers won praise from the Human Rights Campaign this week.

In a statement Tuesday, HRC said “among the benefits that will be extended to partners of Foreign Service officers are travel to and from overseas posts, shipments of household effects, visas and diplomatic passports, emergency travel to visit ill or injured partners, and evacuation in case of a security emergency or medical necessity.”

HRC President Joe Solmonese said the changes, which are tentatively planned and must still be finalized, were “long overdue.”

“For too many years, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Foreign Service officers have been forced to choose between serving their country and protecting their families,” Solmonese said.

The inequity in benefits among Foreign Service officers was highlighted in 2007, when a gay former U.S. Ambassador to Romania ended his 26-year career in the Foreign Service in protest over what he says is the unfair treatment of gay diplomats and their partners.

Michael Guest said he spent three years urging former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her high-level advisers to change policies that critics have said provide more benefits to family pets than to the partners of gay Foreign Service officers stationed abroad.

In his statement this week, Solmonese thanked Guest “for his service to our country and his tremendous leadership in advocating for equality.”