Social Issues, Meet Federal Employees

In the overall coverage of President Obama's memorandum on benefits and anti-discrimination measures, and on John Berry's conference call with the national media, there's been a clear dichotomy at work, between gay rights advocates who are interpreting the order as a meaningless attempt to pacify them, and between the administration's argument that they are trying to do something meaningful for gay federal employees. Both positions are, to a certain extent correct.

President Obama's order will affect a small number of gay Americans who work for the federal government, and it will have no immediate material impact on people who don't work for federal agencies. As the nation-wide gay community goes, the order itself is not a meaningful step towards equality. But at the same time, it seems like a poor strategic decision for the gay community at large to basically dismiss the impact the order will have on gay federal employees. Long-term care insurance may not be an absolute necessity, but especially as people age, it's a nice thing to have. Some supervisors now may allow gay employees to take sick days to care of to care for their partners and their children, but that doesn't mean that all of them do, and having a policy in place guaranteeing that is a definite plus for employees whose supervisors don't currently allow them to do that. Dismissing benefits because they only extend to federal employees is short-sighted, if you believe the model employer theory has any value. If the federal government does end up extending a wide array of progressive benefits to all of its employees, no matter their sexual orientation, it would put pressure on private-sector employers to do the same. More than half of Fortune 500 companies offer similar benefits, but not all do, not even a supermajority. Extending workplace benefits and protections has been a priority of the gay rights movement, and having the federal government on that movement's side could be useful.

At the same time President Obama's attempt to placate the gay community through federal workplace policies probably won't work because of another area he's let slip. Despite his stated goal of making government cool again, Obama's done almost nothing to talk up federal service as meaningful. In fact, his remarks yesterday were significant in part because they were his first major statement as president about the government's need to attract top talent. If Obama had done a lot of groundwork to improve the prestige of federal service, and of federal employees, his attempts to extend benefits to them might have been seen as more significant. Instead, the gay community seems likely to dismiss this initiative because, hey, it only affects federal employees, and they aren't that important anyway.