A bill sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that would extend the same federal hiring preference to fathers that is available to mothers of service members killed or permanently and totally disabled in action has cleared the Senate.
The Gold Star Fathers Act, which passed the Senate on Monday, takes its name from an unofficial symbol of parents whose children are killed in action.
Such parents are referred to as “Gold Star parents” because they traditionally display a Gold Star flag as a symbol of their loss and sacrifice. The federal government has long recognized the sacrifice of Gold Star families by granting unmarried and separated Gold Star mothers —and unmarried and separated mothers of totally and permanently disabled veterans — a 10-point hiring preference when they apply for federal jobs.
The Gold Star Fathers Act would make this hiring preference gender neutral, extending it to unmarried or separated fathers of service members killed in action or totally and permanently disabled. “These families whose sons and daughters have been killed or disabled in combat have already made huge sacrifices for this country,” Wyden said. “We must ensure that the federal government recognizes these fathers as well as these mothers who have given so much for this country.”
The bill now goes to the House of Representatives.
The tradition of hanging a Gold Star flag in homes where a military member had died, and the name bestowed on these families, began shortly after World War I.
to provide support for mothers who lost sons or daughters in the war. The name came from the custom of families of servicemen hanging a banner called a Service Flag in the window of their homes.
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