Plaintiffs, attorneys and a crowd of enthusiastic community members celebrated the filing of a class-action federal lawsuit challenging Georgia’s 2004...
In a letter to U.S. Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) dated Sept. 4, Attorney General Eric Holder informed the Republican House Speaker that President Obama's administration will extend veterans benefits for married same-sex couples.
This comes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 26 ruling that struck down a key portion of the Defense of Marriage Act, and the Internal Revenue Service's Aug. 29 decision to allow same-sex married couples to file federal taxes together and share Medicare benefits.
Based on the court ruling, the administration will no longer enforce policies that restrict veteran benefits to legally married opposite-sex couples.
It hasn’t even been two months since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the key part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, but “the lay of the land is getting a bit complicated,” according to James Esseks, director of the ACLU’s National LGBT and AIDS Project.
Esseks was one of the attorneys involved in pressing the case of Edith Windsor, which led to a historic June 26 decision striking down the core provision of DOMA.
Assessing the deluge of litigation since then, “it’s hard to keep count,” Esseks said.