Recently, a lot of debate arose about homosexual marriage. After President Obama determined that he is in support of gay matrimony, the homosexual activists stormed the courts championing their cause. A federal court recently decided to take a look at the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which was employed federally in 1996. They ruled on May 31^st, 2012, that the Act discriminates against homosexual couples by denying them the rights that heterosexual couples enjoy when they get married. As of right now, this decision won't have any effect on the DOMA or the way that homosexual marriages are treated because the decision will probably be brought to the Supreme Court for a final appeal.

This is the first ruling where an appeals court has ever declared the federal law unconstitutional. The decision was made by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, Massachusetts. In the court room, the judges looked carefully at the federal benefits that are extended to heterosexual couples and tried to pin-point why same-sex couples are not permitted to receive these benefits. They admitted that they were not looking at the legality of same-sex marriage itself. Presently, men and women who are married to a person of the same gender are not given any federal benefits.

Only 8 states currently allow gay couples to marry and extend the state-granted benefits of marriage to them. These states are Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Iowa. Washington and Maryland have also approved gay marriage but have not set their laws on the subject in motion yet. Other states allow civil partnership, which is similar to a marriage but does not permit some of the state's marriage assistances. There is no state which has jurisdiction over whether or not homosexual couples may live together, but the partners are normally not allowed any benefits for this decision.

The federal benefits of marriage span a variety of different areas. Traditional couples are given tax benefits when they file joint income on their tax returns. They also have first claim to their spouse's estate if he or she passes away. If a spouse inherits his wives estate, or vice versa, then the spouse will be exempt from any estate and gift taxes. Also, the government allows men and women who are married to receive Social Security, Medicare, and disability benefits for their spouses. These are only a few of the many privileges that are currently restricted to couples that are eligible under DOMA.

Gay and lesbian activists were pleased with the Court of Appeals' recent ruling, and hope that the Supreme Court will agree and declare that the Defense of Marriage Act is not fair for homosexual couples. Others hope that the Supreme Court will reverse the decision. Some people speculate that this decision to extend federal benefits to same-sex married couples would encourage other states to adopt a pro-gay marriage attitude.

The Act was signed into federal law by President Bill Clinton. In 2009, the state of Massachusetts determined that the law was unconstitutional, and brought up their first concern to the government. One lawyer who was a part of this initial complaint says that DOMA is discriminatory and that there is no justification for it. When the Massachusetts lawyer and her team of supporters took the case to the courts, a federal judge said that the law violated the equal protection class of the constitution because it denied benefits to one class of married people but not to others. While the Supreme Court has not agreed to take on the case yet, lawyers and analysts believe that they will. Until then, federal benefits will only be administered to heterosexual couples.