In 1996, responding to a Hawaii Supreme Court ruling that a ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage for the purpose of federal law.
Weill, instrumental in the repeal of the Glass-Steagall law that allowed the marriage of commercial and investment banking, is considered the father of such financial supermarkets.
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Eight years ago, Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage for purposes of federal law as the legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.
The biggest hurdle the couple faces is the federal Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA. The 1996 law allows states to ignore the marriage laws of other states and it specifically exempts states from being forced to accept tribal same-sex marriages.
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Both Rick Perry and Mitt Romney have said they support the repeal of the marriage law there, but what does the President hope is the outcome of this vote?
Hughes is Eldridge's spouse under New York law but, pursuant to the Defense of Marriage Act, not under federal law.
The 1996 law, the Defense of Marriage Act, denies federal tax and other benefits to same-sex married couples.
Until now, the State Department had withheld these benefits citing the Defense of Marriage Law, which restricts the recognition of same-sex marriages on the federal level.
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Surveys have showed that the divide is both political and generational: The Left is, for the most part, in favour of the same-sex marriage law while the hard Right, and leaders of the French Catholics, Muslims and Jews oppose it.
It is hard to think of an issue more clearly reserved to state law under constitutional tradition than the definition of marriage.
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Furthermore, even if the Defense of Marriage Act is upheld, the law does not protect marriage within any state or city.
The separate case over the Defense of Marriage Act involves a 1996 law that says for federal purposes, marriage is defined as only between one man and one woman.
In one case, several parties have challenged a federal law known as the Defense of Marriage Act (Doma), a measure that denies federal benefits available for straight couples to legally married same-sex couples.
In its separate argument on Wednesday, the justices will tackle the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a 1996 law defining marriage for federal purposes as between a man and a woman.
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Such civil union laws in most cases provide the same rights of marriage under state law, without actually calling it that.
So even where gay couples enjoy all the legal benefits of marriage under state law, they do not enjoy equality under federal law.
That statute protects marriage under federal law as the union of a man and a woman, and declares that one state may not redefine marriage for other states.
Many other states, including New Jersey, Illinois, Delaware, Rhode Island and Hawaii, have legalized domestic partnerships and civil unions for such couples -- a step designed in most cases to provide the same rights of marriage under state law.
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Nine other states, including California, New Jersey, Illinois, Delaware, Rhode Island and Hawaii, have legalized domestic partnerships and civil unions for such couples -- a step designed in most cases to provide the same rights of marriage under state law.
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Alice is my mother in law, a widow after 62 years of marriage.
Blatant discrimination in the shape of the Defence of Marriage Act enshrines in law that marriage is between a man and a woman.
The references to women in the Koran range from personal issues to the question of divorce, and from the law of inheritance to fidelity and partnership in marriage.
This is the first of two report stage days, with amendments grouped into several subjects - (a) sex education, (b) conscientious or other objection to marriage of same sex couples, (c) equality law, (d) religious organisations' opt-in to marriage of same sex couples, and (e) protection against compulsion to solemnize marriages of same sex couples or to carry out activities in relation to the solemnization of such marriages.
However for all the spring in their stride, opponents of gay marriage are also aware that their chances of blocking France's law are small at best.
The Justice Department will argue against the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law, on Wednesday.
Windsor, which challenges the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that uses the traditional definition for federal law and says one state's definition cannot bind another's.
Lawmakers in France's lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, on Saturday passed with a wide majority the most important article of a law to legalize same-sex marriage.
But in fact such a law is already in force: the Defence of Marriage Act of 1996 was sanctioned by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, to stop gay partners claiming welfare benefits.
Ms. Spyer who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1977 and later paralyzed by the disease left her entire estate to Ms. Windsor, who wouldn't have paid any taxes had it not been for the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that defined "spouse" as "a person of opposite sex" for the purposes of the federal government.
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Mr. Clement responded to Justice Kennedy that Doma merely defined marriage for the purposes of federal law, such as Social Security benefits.
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