Proposed bill would make full benefits to same sex military spouses a federal law

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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/15/proposed-bill-would-make-full-benefits-to-same-sex-military-spouses-a-federal-law/



Proposed bill would make full benefits to same sex military spouses a federal law
By David Ferguson
Friday, February 15, 2013 15:01 EST

Two Democratic congressmen have co-sponsored H.R. 683, the Military Spouses Equal Treatment Act (MSET) of 2013, a bill that enshrine into law recent changes in Defense Department policy toward same sex spouses of service members. Bill author Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) and co-sponsor Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) introduced the legislation on Thursday, which would include the benefits named under Defense Secretary Leon Pannetta’s policy, announced Monday, and additional benefits not included under current policy.

In an interview with Raw Story, Smith said that authoring the bill is a matter of bringing federal government policy in line with progress that has been made on the state level.

“Several states including mine, Washington,” he said, “allow for same sex marriage. You have the increasing instance of ‘Okay, we are now going to have the LGBT community serving openly within the military, how do we make sure we protect their benefits?’”

“Unfortunately,” he continued, “throughout U.S. code, even with ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repealed, there’s a ton of discrimination in there. Basically, it’s a legal problem to go back in there and fix it to make sure that now that LGBT folks are able to openly serve, we can make sure they get the benefits that they should.”