Washington - US President Barack Obama plans to approve benefits for federal workers to their unmarried partners, including same-sex partners, according to media reports Tuesday.

The move was expected to be made on Wednesday and would affect health care and financial benefits that are currently denied to opposite sex and same sex partners, MSNBC and the Washington Post reported, quoting unnamed White House officials.

The State Department last month announced a similar gesture for State Department employees.

Obama has put the gay-rights activists community on edge with his opposition to same-sex marriage, a rallying cry for the movement. The move to extend benefits to the unmarried partners of federal workers could be seen as a gesture of reconciliation.

But the long-simmering issue of same-sex marriage is both politically and morally charged in the US, and his move is likely to provoke loud criticism among conservatives. In last November's elections, California, Arizona and Florida passed gay marriage bans. In
Arkansas, voters passed a law depriving gays of the right to adopt children.

On the opposite side, Vermont, Iowa, Massachusetts and Connecticut allow same-sex marriage.

The order Obama is to sign on Wednesday apparently would not apply to military men and women in uniform. (dpa)