Beyond Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Benefits for All Military Families

Many people see issues of bunks and showers as the biggest stumbling blocks to repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. A lesser-discussed matter, however, is the benefits for families of servicemembers with same-sex partners.

Military families get an extensive set of benefits, including medical, dental, and group life insurance, coverage for moving expenses, temporary on-base housing, and emergency financial relief funds. Servicemembers with legal spouses or children get higher pay and housing allowances. Spouses can apply for Military Spouse Scholarships and other aid toward training for “portable” careers that fit the frequent relocations of military life. On an everyday basis, spouses can buy groceries and goods just above cost at the on-base commissary and Post Exchange (PX).

More soberingly, only legal spouses, blood relatives, or adoptive relatives have the right to handle the disposition of remains when a servicemember is killed. Spouses and children are also eligible for various life insurance and annuities upon the servicemember’s death.

Military bases also offer a plethora of support groups and services for spouses and children when a servicemember is deployed, has been injured or killed, or is transitioning back from combat. The military also protects spouses and children with a program dedicated to the prevention and treatment of abuse.

Children of military personnel may also take part in on-base childcare programs, or in some cases, off-base childcare at the lower on-base rate. (The military runs the largest employer-supported childcare program in the U.S.) The military also offers children after-school support groups and recreational activities. These programs are convenient and provide a peer group of other children dealing with life in a military family.

There are also special college scholarships for children of military personnel, as well as the opportunity for in-state tuition rates at state schools in either their home state or that of their parent’s duty assignment.

If a child is the biological or adopted child of the non-servicemember partner, however, and the couple is stationed in a jurisdiction that does not allow a same-sex parent to do a second-parent adoption, then the servicemember is not legally that child’s parent. There are still ways for the couple to declare the child a dependent of the servicemember, but whether that would be seen as equal to a legal child for all military benefits (such as the disposition of remains) is an open question.

Will same-sex partners and non-legal children of servicemembers be recognized if DADT is repealed? The wording of the DADT repeal legislation currently in the House, H.R. 1283, states: “Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to require the furnishing of dependent benefits in violation of section 7 of title 1, United States Code (relating to the definitions of ‘marriage’ and ‘spouse’ and referred to as the ‘Defense of Marriage Act’).”

As Nathan Tabak recently explained here at Change.org, the Center for American Progress (CAP) has issued a report on how we might repeal DADT. It concluded that no federal law prevents the president from extending spousal benefits to same-sex partners of servicemembers, and suggests using guidelines from the June 2009 White House memo that established a procedure for extending certain benefits to the same-sex partners of federal civil service employees.

An Associated Press article (via the Washington Post), however, noted that some opponents of repeal may bring up issues such as spousal benefits in order to make repeal seem overly complicated. Even Kevin Nix, a spokesman for the pro-repeal Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, told the AP, "Let's get rid of the ban first and then look at [spousal] issues."

He has a point, but it seems that using the civil service model (already implemented by the State Department) is an obvious solution.

In 2007, senior Army leaders and leaders of every Army installation worldwide signed the Army Family Covenant, a pledge to support soldiers’ families. It says in part, “We recognize the strength of our Soldiers comes from the strength of their Families.”

If we are to remain the world’s strongest military power, therefore, we must support the families of all servicemembers.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons