What does DOMA mean for us?

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So it was pretty exciting when DOMA and Prop 8 were ruled on by the Supreme Court! We celebrated and jumped for joy at such a huge step forward for equality and our families rights.

Now that some time has passed we find ourselves wondering, but what does this really mean for us? It's unclear if those of us who are legally married same-sex couples, but living in a state that does not recognize us as married will have access to most of the Federal benefits allowed to married couples.  It seems that many of the departments, such as the IRS, use the state's definition of marriage in deciding whether a couple has access to married benefits. So although we were legally married in D.C. and are recognized as married in Washington, California, Iowa, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland, we are not recognized in Colorado.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Although the Supreme Court rulings were a huge victory, there is still a long way to go to reach full equality.

The HRC along with some other groups put together a bunch of fact sheets on the federal benefits that I'll be checking out to try and piece together what all of this means. If you're interested you can find them here.