Today, the Maryland House re-committed back to committee the marriage equality bill that had previously been approved by the Senate, delaying equality to Maryland's same-sex couples.

Today, upon the re-introduction of the Student Non-Discrimination Act in Congress, Lambda Legal released the following statement by Hayley Gorenberg, Deputy Legal Director of Lambda Legal

Lambda Legal and Morrison & Foerster LLP today told a federal judge that government attorneys have shown they have no further arguments and therefore no further legal barrier exists to a married lesbian federal employee receiving spousal health benefits already provided to her heterosexual co-workers. U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys had argued that, among other reasons, the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) prohibits the employer-provided medical insurance that Karen Golinski had requested for her spouse, Amy Cunninghis. Lambda Legal and Morrison & Foerster represent Golinski, a 19-year-employee of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The new IRS policy is mandatory for income earned in 2010 (returns for which are filed in 2011) and affects not just you and your wife, but all married couples in California—whether same-sex or different-sex—as well as all registered domestic partners (RDPs) in California, Nevada and Washington. Those are the three states that both have "community property" laws and that also recognize that same-sex couples can acquire community property. There are a total of 10 states with community property laws, but seven of those states (Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas and Wisconsin) have not yet applied those laws to same-sex relationships.

Wednesday the 23rd brought a triple victory. The Obama administration and the Department of Justice said they would no longer defend Section 3 of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The same day, the new governor of Hawai`i signed civil unions into law and the Maryland Senate voted 25-21 in favor of a marriage equality bill

(San Francisco, CA, March 1, 2011)—Today, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Equality California, American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, and Lambda Legal jointly filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals asking the court to lift the temporary stay in the federal court challenge to Proposition 8.

"The Obama administration will press ahead with its fight against one federal employee’s bid to obtain health insurance for her same-sex spouse, according to a government court filing on Monday.

"The decision by the Justice Department comes days after it announced that a federal statute defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman—known as the Defense of Marriage Act—was unconstitutional.

"But the headlines missed the technical but important note in Holder's announcement: the Obama administration believes that any law affecting lesbians and gay men deserves "heightened scrutiny" by the courts.

(San Francisco, February 28, 2011) — The U.S. Department of Justice
has announced that it will continue to deny spousal health insurance
benefits to a lesbian federal employee, in spite of last week’s
announcement that Attorney General Eric Holder has determined that the
so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional and that
DOJ therefore will no longer defend it against court challenges.

"A survivor of a same-sex marriage can inherit as a spouse, an appeals court said Thursday in a ruling a gay-rights legal group called the first appellate decision of its kind in New York.

"While same-sex couples can't wed in the state, J. Craig Leiby and H. Kenneth Ranftle were legally married in Canada, so Leiby is entitled to recognition as the surviving spouse in a dispute over Ranftle's estate, the appellate judges said in upholding a lower court's decision.