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State Department rule change allows gay couples to use married names on US passports
DENISE LAVOIE
AP Legal Affairs Writer
5:29 PM EDT, June 19, 2009
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BOSTON (AP) — Gay couples
traveling overseas can now show passports that feature their married
names, letting them take advantage of a little-noticed revision to
State Department regulations that critics had feared would undermine
the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
The notice of the change
says that it does not mean the State Department is recognizing the
validity of same-sex marriages and civil unions, but that it was to
comply with an amendment to the Code of Federal Regulations that took
effect in February 2008.
The name-change revision took effect
May 27 in an addition to the State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual.
It allows same-sex couples to obtain passports under the names
recognized by their state through their marriages or civil unions.
Keith
and Al Toney, of Holden, learned of the change this week and expressed
relief at the end of an effort that began in 2007, when Keith applied
for a passport under his married name but was denied.
"We'll
probably be going back to Costa Rica in August, and just knowing that I
don't have to hand over a passport that I considered fraudulent ...
just knowing that I have an accurate passport, I feel like I can hold
my head up high," Keith Toney said.
The move is separate from
steps Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton took this week to grant
some of the same benefits to the partners of gay diplomats as those
available to spouses in heterosexual marriages.
Still, groups
opposed to gay marriage criticized the name-change provision, saying it
erodes the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits federal
recognition of any same-sex partnerships.
"It's an exercise that
the current administration is using to try to nibble away at the
Defense of Marriage Act," said Kris Mineau, president of the
Massachusetts Family Institute.
"There's no doubt that President
Obama has made a strong commitment to repeal the DOMA ... and it will
take an act of Congress to do so," Mineau said. "He cannot circumvent
the law, but he attempts to do so not head-on, but in an oblique
approach."
Obama said he wants to see the Defense of Marriage
Act repealed. But he's been heavily criticized by gay rights groups for
not moving quickly enough on his campaign promises to expand gay rights.
Evan
Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, a New York-based group
that campaigns nationally for gay marriage rights, said the change in
passport regulations is a "very small step in the right direction," but
falls "far short of the work that needs to happen to keep the federal
government from discriminating against gay couples across the country."
The
Toneys got married in 2004, shortly after Massachusetts became the
first state to legalize same-sex marriage. Keith, whose unmarried name
is Fitzpatrick, was rejected when he applied for a passport as Keith
Toney. The passport agency cited the Defense of Marriage Act.
Keith
Toney was forced to get a passport in his old name so he could travel
with his spouse and daughter to Costa Rica, where the family owns a
vacation home, he said.
During previous trips, he said, he was
repeatedly questioned about why the name on his passport differed from
the name on his other forms of identification, including his
Massachusetts driver's license, which had his married name.
"It was degrading, it really was," he said.
The couple later joined a lawsuit challenging the act filed by the Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders.
GLAD
received a letter from the Justice Department this week, informing the
group of the change and inviting Keith Toney to submit a passport
renewal application with his married name. He plans to submit his
application to the Boston Passport Agency on Monday.
The
separate changes instituted this week by the State Department include
the right of domestic partners to hold diplomatic passports,
government-paid travel to and from foreign posts, the use of U.S.
medical facilities abroad, eligibility for U.S. government emergency
evacuations, and training at the State Department's Foreign Service
Institute.
Clinton announced the measures after Obama's decision
on Wednesday to grant some benefits to the same-sex partners of gay
federal employees.
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