Lauren,
Thanks for the email and your interest in serving in the Peace Corps. Since the Peace Corps is a federal agency we are required to use the Federal standard/definition of marriage and would not be able to place you and your partner as a married couple.
Michael Salazar
Kazakhstan 2001-2003
Recruitment Coordinator
Peace Corps Los Angeles Regional Office
2361 Rosecrans Avenue, Suite 155
El Segundo, CA 90245
Telephone: 310-356-1110
Fax: 310-356-1125
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2 comments:
That is ridiculous. There are more gay than straight people in the Peace Corps anyway. The only difference between you two and the others is that you two applied together.
Unbelievable and totally ridiculous.
What Mr. Salazar said is true, according to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, they really can't recognize state-sanctioned gay marriage. The email could almost be read as an apology, like "our hands our tied, but we'd love to help you."
However, the Peace Corps has a history of homophobic policies. In the past, in addition to denying people for the federal law reason, they have cited 'cultural sensitivity,' 'security,' and 'primacy of the mission' as reasons to deny LGBT couples to serve together.
Also, and to me much worse, is the fact that they JUST (this July) changed their policy on HIV positive volunteers. And that was after a lot of pressure from the ACLU:
Old Washington Post article
ACLU update
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