Attorneys for the State and City of New York, who were defending the marriage law, disagreed.
It notes that the government has launched a public consultation on changes to the marriage law.
He said the administration had bipartisan support in its bid to get the Supreme Court to nullify the marriage law.
WSJ: Justices Question Obama's Stance on Defense of Marriage Act
The marriage law is seen as France's most important social reform in France since the abolition of the death penalty in 1981.
Former President Bill Clinton, who signed the marriage law into effect 17 years ago, said this month he now backs the right of homosexuals to marry.
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The amendments to the marriage law would make divorce harder.
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?
"I can't think of another instance where that's happened, " said Justice Stephen Breyer, a liberal, referring to the House's intervention in the federal marriage law case.
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.
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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Furthermore, even if the Defense of Marriage Act is upheld, the law does not protect marriage within any state or city.
The court could historically alter how the law treats marriage, striking down laws across the country banning same-sex marriage and matching an apparent cultural shift toward acceptance of same-sex couples.
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.
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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The new law penalizes marriage and for many upper-middle income families may boost federal marginal tax rates well above 40%.
The New Hampshire legislature this month is expected to vote on a bill that would repeal the same-sex marriage law there.
When Governor Chafee signs the bill into law, gay marriage will be legal in 10 states and Washington DC, the nation's capital city.
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Hughes is Eldridge's spouse under New York law but, pursuant to the Defense of Marriage Act, not under federal law.
Mr Panetta said that while the remaining benefits are blocked by a federal law that does not recognise same-sex marriage, he foresaw a time "when the law will allow the department to grant full benefits to service members and their dependents, irrespective of sexual orientation".
The tension between mother- and daughter-in-law started about a year into the Browns' marriage, when Ms. Brown got pregnant and her mother-in-law suddenly seemed to know everything.
WSJ: Getting Along With the Original Other Woman��Your Mother-in-Law
Later that month, Iceland's prime minister Johanna Sigurdardottir married her partner, writer Jonina Leosdottir, on the day the country's gay marriage law came into force.
Even the business of catching adulterers in the act, once a dependable income stream for private eyes, dried up when a change to marriage law in 1973 meant the party seeking a divorce no longer needed to prove that a spouse had cheated.
To recover on the Judgment, the landlord brought a fraudulent transfer action against the Debtor and his wife for transfers the Debtor made into various entireties accounts in Pennsylvania during his 35 years with the law firm and his long marriage with his wife.
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.
In Windsor, the Defense of Marriage Act case, the government also declines to defend its law, but the U.S. Solicitor General, unlike the California attorney general, filed a notice of appeal and a petition for review, and the government is continuing to enforce the law.
WSJ: Michael McConnell: The Constitution and Same-Sex Marriage
If the legislature decides to repeal that marriage law will he support that decision?
In 1998 the state passed a law defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
Such civil union laws in most cases provide the same rights of marriage under state law, without actually calling it that.
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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