DOMA

“The bill does two things,” says Colorado State Senator Pat Steadman. “It changes last year’s civil unions law to remove the prohibition against civil union partners filling joint returns… And it removes language from the state income tax law that talks about married couples or makes reference to husbands and wives. Basically, it makes the language gender neutral.”

The Texas National Guard will immediately begin letting same-sex couples register for benefits after the Defense Department approved a new procedure for enrolling National Guard members and their dependents for benefits.

During an hour of arguments in San Francisco on Wednesday, a panel of three 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal judges left unclear whether they would give gays the same status race and gender play in jury selection. Lawyers are allowed to remove prospective jurors without any legal reason, but are barred from removing potential jurors based on race and gender. Now, the court must decide whether sexual orientation deserves the same protection.

Same-sex couples took one more step closer to marriage equality throughout the land Thursday as they now join the ranks of Americans who can complain about the marriage penalty - or thank their lucky stars for the marriage bonus - come April 15th every year.

Congress or the courts may still have more work to do before the VA can start providing federal benefits to married, same-sex couples, according to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki. The Supreme Court ruled in June that a law, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, denying federal tax, health and pension benefits to married, same-sex couples was unconstitutional. The law governing veteran's benefits contained similar provisions, Shinseki said, but hasn't specifically been addressed by the courts or federal legislation.

Married same-sex couples now can donate to political campaigns in the same way as straight couples, according to the Federal Election Commission. This follows the Supreme Court decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, and it's one of the first federal changes to directly stem from that ruling.

Two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Lambda Legal and the ACLU of Illinois filed papers asking the court for a swift end to the harm and indignity couples face without the freedom to marry — which now includes the inability to access many federal marriage benefits.

Lambda Legal, alongside the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), announced yesterday that it is in the planning stages of a new federal lawsuit seeking the freedom to marry for same-sex couples in Virginia.

When the Supreme Court struck down part of an anti-gay marriage law, Justice Anthony Kennedy took pains in his majority opinion to say the ruling applied only to legally married same-sex couples seeking benefits from the federal government. But judges and lawyers representing same-sex couples are already using Kennedy's language and reasoning in other cases about the right to marry.

Pat Robertson is wondering if Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion on the case striking down a key section of the Defense of Marriage Act, may have been influenced by his sneaky gay clerks.