LGBT News Obama administration won't enforce VA ban on same-sex benefits

(!)

 

I thought the overturning over DOMA would have taken care of that (?). After all, VA benefits are federal benefits, not state benefits, so I would think there would be no issue in extending these benefits to same sex married couples.

 

Not bad

 

Most states are fighting it, sourcing that their state's constitution defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

They can't do it long though, because things like VA Benefits are federal programs, not state, and fall under federal rulings.

 

And now for the legal technicality (and note that I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on TV sometimes )

What was actually overturned was section 3 of DOMA, which modified 1 USC 1 to add the definition of marriage among a very limited set of other definitions, however important.

What the Obama administration is saying that they won't obey is a separate definition, somewhere else in the law (or regulations, I have no clue and don't wanna look it up ), because in the wake of that being declared unconstitutional, this other thing surely must fail the same test.

 

Could be wrong, but I heard that this policy was governed by a separate law, and what the Obama Administration did was to interpret the SCOTUS ruling on DOMA to apply to this other law. Or something like that.

 

I can only imagine which states are fighting it. When you think about it, the states are basically shooting themselves in the foot--in a time when states are vying for economic stability, what states would try to stymie their citizens from receiving money?

If the state is not issuing the check and not involved in the process at all, why are they concerned? It is just showing that they are in fact going out of their way to discriminate.