Updated: President Obama will sign a memorandum Wednesday extending benefits to unwed domestic partners who are federal employees, including gays and lesbians. The decision, leaked to several news organizations Tuesday night, comes as gay rights activists were becoming increasingly frustrated with this White House. The memorandum follows similar State Department action on domestic partners last month.

But contrary to earlier reports, the move will not extend full health or retirement plans to domestic partners. Gay groups are likely to meet the measure with mixed emotions.

Still, it is Obama's first significant move supporting gay rights. And it may be more evidence of the Grey Lady's hold over this White House. Obama's decision follows a New York Times editorial Monday that strongly criticized Obama's inaction on gay rights, as well as his opposition.

The Times noted that the Obama administration submitted a brief defending the Defense of Marriage Act, which he pledged to push to overturn. To defend DOMA, the brief cited a precedent concerning incestuous relationships. The point? It was to argue that there are some relationships states are not compelled to recognize.

“There was no need to resort to specious arguments and inflammatory language to impugn same-sex marriage as an institution,” the Times wrote in response.

The editorial came on the same day the president of The Human Rights Campaign sent a letter to Obama urging him to “put your principles into action and send legislation repealing DOMA to Congress." In its most personal passage, the letter read that, "I cannot overstate the pain that we feel as human beings and as families when we read an argument, presented in federal court, implying that our own marriages have no more constitutional standing than incestuous ones.”

The letter was the latest evidence of gay groups impatience with this president. Obama has been, until now, silent or oppositional on the cause he pledged to take up.

But Wednesday's action on domestic partners will not end the issue. Full health insurance coverage for gay partners is offered across corporate America. Obama has not yet met the same bar as many conservative boardrooms.

The order will also not be extended to men and women in the military. Obama has, for example, yet to act on the Pentagon's policy of "don't ask, don't tell," which about seven in ten Americans oppose. This is a president behind his public.

But Wednesday's step will buy Obama some more time. As I wrote last week, gay activists were begining to wonder if Obama's comparisons between the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement were merely talk. Wednesday's signing represents Obama's first significant action to prove otherwise. But gay groups still seem unsure whether Obama's action Wednesday is a start or a stall tactic. They remain suspect of his campaign pledge to "fight hard" for their movement.

Next week, Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to speak at a fundraiser of gay Democrats. Some donations have already been withdrawn.