In a July 27 editorial, The Washington Times wrote that new regulations allowing same-sex partners of federal workers to receive long-term care insurance represents an “assault on marriage” by President Obama. From the Times editorial, titled, “Obama's assault on marriage”:

President Obama's effort to undermine marriage as the union of one man and one woman advanced as an Office of Personnel Management (OPM) regulation took effect earlier this month. Under the new rules, Uncle Sam will provide long-term care insurance to the “domestic partners” of all federal employees as if they were partners in true wedlock.

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Mr. Obama ordered the policy change in June 2009 when he instructed all relevant federal agencies to identify benefits that could be offered to homosexuals that live together. The president's memorandum on the subject represented a blatant effort to evade the Defense of Marriage Act. This law, enacted in 1996, prohibits federal regulations from referring to marriage as anything other than the “union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” and a spouse as anything other than “a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.”

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In May, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that a similar proposal to extend federal health benefits to homosexual partners would cost taxpayers an additional $400 million over 10 years, or $600 million if the benefits applied to current retirees. These figures assumed that one-third of 1 percent of federal employees would register as domestic partners. That estimate was based on the number of homosexuals who have signed up for equivalent offerings at the state and local government level.

If accurate, it would mean the White House is actively attacking the foundations of the traditional family to cater to a handful of extremists. Instead of finding yet more beneficiaries for federal largesse, the Obama administration ought to devote its attention to reining in the reckless spending that has burdened all families with a $13.3 trillion debt.