The Administration has Made LGBT Rights a Priority Around The World and it Resonates
Matthew Cuenca-Daigle’s husband is a Foreign Service officer who last year gladly accepted a position at the American Embassy in Beijing. But only months before his husband’s language training was to begin, embassy officials said it was unclear if Mr. Cuenca-Daigle could get a long-term visa, given that China does not recognize same-sex marriages.
The officials said that Mr. Cuenca-Daigle could get a three-month tourist visa. But he would then have to leave China before it expired and travel to Japan, South Korea or elsewhere to apply for a new visa, waiting a few days or potentially much longer for it to be issued. There was also the uncertainty of whether a new visa would be granted at all.
So Mr. Cuenca-Daigle’s husband, who had said no to other State Department positions in favor of the one in China, backed out of the Beijing job.
“He had turned down the rather important positions he could have taken instead,” Mr. Cuenca-Daigle said.
From the earliest years of the Obama administration, the State Department has made securing the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people around the world a priority. But the department is increasingly trying to secure equal opportunities for a group much closer to home: its own employees.
Around 50 percent of State Department positions around the world are effectively off-limits for Foreign Service officers who would want to move with their same-sex spouses, according to current and former department employees and Glifaa, an advocacy group for gay and transgender people in the State Department, the United States Agency for International Development, the Peace Corps and other foreign affairs offices in the government. Glifaa’s acronym comes from its original name, Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies.
Some countries, like Brunei and Qatar, will not issue diplomatic visas to same-sex spouses. Others, like China and the Philippines, have more ambiguous and inconsistent policies under which getting a visa can depend on the person behind the visa counter.
These disputes could affect 100 to 200 families among the State Department’s 14,000 Foreign Service officers at American embassies and consulates abroad, according to officers’ estimates. (Neither the State Department nor Glifaa keeps an official count.)
“It’s increasingly a problem, as some countries have wanted to take a stand on the issue of marriage equality that isn’t really theirs to take,” said Michael E. Guest, a former United States envoy to Romania, who in 2001 was the State Department’s second openly gay officer to become an ambassador.
Last month, more than 100 members of Congress sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, urging the State Department to deny visas to the spouses of diplomats from countries where the same-sex spouses of American Foreign Service officers are unwelcome. The department responded that it was unable to do that for legal reasons.
Instead, the State Department says that the work involved in resolving the visa issue is being done quietly, by necessity.
Officials there also say that progress has been made: In 2011, according to department statistics, only 38 percent of the postings around the world could guarantee visas for same-sex spouses. And this year, the department appointed Randy W. Berry, a longtime diplomat, as a special envoy for the rights of gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Most countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Middle East deny same-sex spouses diplomatic visas. In many cases, spouses are permitted to enter the country, but the visas do not allow them to work and most often require them to leave every few months to reapply, as in the case of the tourist visa for China. The spouses also do not have the protections that come with diplomatic visas.
The local political climate can make not carrying a diplomatic visa problematic. In December 2013, in the middle of a confrontation between India and the United States over the arrest of an Indian deputy consul general in New York for her treatment of a housekeeper, the Indian Supreme Court reinstated an anti-sodomy law. After the court’s ruling, a prominent Indian politician suggested that the government arrest the same-sex companions of American diplomats.
“Put them behind bars, prosecute them in this country and punish them,” the politician, Yashwant Sinha, said.
Even as support for same-sex marriage grows in the United States, some countries have been pushing back against gay rights. Macedonia approved a constitutional amendment this year defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In 2014, the Nigerian president signed a ban on same-sex relationships that threatens violators with 14-year prison terms. Same-sex relationships are still legal in Russia, but a 2013 law banning gay “propaganda” was widely interpreted as a vehicle to suppress gays in the country.
“L.G.B.T. families are essentially taking a risk,” Mr. Guest said, “particularly in countries where homosexuality is criminalized, or where governments are homophobic in their public attitudes.”
Publicly, officials say that the State Department is working to ensure that all of its employees and their families can be sent anywhere in the world.
“It’s increasingly a problem, as some countries have wanted to take a stand on the issue of marriage equality that isn’t really theirs to...
Do we allow diplomats and other officials from Muslim countries to bring more than one wife here officially?
“We refuse to accept that equal treatment by our foreign counterparts is too much to ask,” Heather Higginbottom, the deputy secretary of state for management and resources, said in June.
But despite official assurances, Mr. Guest said gay men and women in the State Department worried that they would miss out on jobs that could help advance their careers.
“Many of the hardship posts, including posts where homosexuality is an issue in the host country, are potentially many of the most career-enhancing places,” Mr. Guest said. “And not being able to go to them does place a limit on career options.”
There is also concern that as more gay officers join the Foreign Service after marrying, the department will steer them toward postings where they will not face problems moving with their spouses.
State Department officials reject the notion that the visa problems will have a significant impact on gay officers’ careers, and say that there remain many places around the world where they can serve.
Many Foreign Service officers say that in the not-so-distant past, coming out could lead to being denied security clearances. In the early 2000s, during the administration of President George W. Bush, gay Foreign Service officers who brought up concerns about visas for their partners were routinely reminded that they had signed up for worldwide availability.
In 2009, the department began making same-sex domestic partners eligible for the same benefits as spouses in heterosexual marriages: paid travel expenses to international postings, language training and the use of American government medical facilities abroad.
As gay Foreign Service officers try to overcome the visa hurdle, there are mixed opinions about whether the State Department is doing enough. Regina Jun, the president of Glifaa, acknowledged that the department could do only so much.
“It’s such a sensitive issue,” she said. “Some of these countries have their own domestic agenda, and they’re not ready to publicly say yes.”
ANDREW SIDDONS
Comments