Pentagon Announces Some Same-Sex Partner Benefits

The Department of Defense will be extending certain benefits to same-sex couples in the military, a move announced in a memorandum by Secretary Leon Panetta — a final punctuation mark to the outgoing defense secretary's tenure at the Pentagon.

"Our work must now expand to changing our policies and practices to ensure fairness and equal treatment and to taking care of all of our service members and their families, to the extent allowable by law," Panetta wrote of the post-"don't ask, don't tell" military in the memo.

The Defense of Marriage Act prohibits the federal government recognizing same-sex couples' marriages limits those benefits, but both the Pentagon and advocacy had identified several benefits that could be extended, from joint duty assignments for couples in which both partners are in the military to allowing servicemembers' same-sex partner to have a military identification card.

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