Kerry Eleveld at the Advocate reviews the President's handling of gay civil rights over the past year. Her opinion matters greatly in the gay community. Here's an excerpt:
But perhaps what is most peculiar for a president who ran on an aggressive equality platform was the Office of Personnel Management’s recent decision not to provide same-sex partner benefits to a federal employee, defying a federal judge who ordered the agency to do so in a dispute resolution case.
Based on guidance from DOJ, OPM reasoned that the order was not legally binding because the judge was acting in an administrative capacity rather than a court case. Representatives from Lambda Legal, the organization representing the federal employee, countered that a federal judge is always imbued with the power of a federal judge regardless of what proceeding he’s presiding over.
Without getting too bogged down in legalese, suffice it to say that the case presents in shades of gray and could be interpreted by reasonable lawyers different ways. The real question is, if the administration has to lean one way or the other, why not lean toward equalizing treatment for gay couples, as candidate Obama consistently claimed he would?
“I don't understand why they are so focused on finding reasons to not do this -- it seems to me that they had all the cover they needed if they had wanted to reach a different result,” Richard Socarides, a New York attorney and former LGBT advisor to President Clinton told me. Just as the agency argued the order was not legally binding, he added, “they could have also chosen to comply and said they were being directed to do so by a federal appellate judge.”
