When DADT was finally ended last year, a glaring anomaly was that lesbian or gay service men could serve openly - but if married could not enjoy all the usual employment benefits available to opposite - sex couples. An important decision by the Department of Justice means that will now change: the discriminatory legislation will no longer be defended in court.
The Obama Justice Department has concluded that legislation banning same-sex couples from receiving military and veterans benefits violates the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment and will no longer defend the statute in court, Attorney General Eric Holder wrote in a letter to Congressional leaders on Friday.
“The legislative record of these provisions contains no rationale for providing veterans’ benefits to opposite-sex couples of veterans but not to legally married same-sex spouses of veterans,” Holder wrote. “Neither the Department of Defense nor the Department of Veterans Affairs identified any justifications for that distinction that would warrant treating these provisions differently from Section 3 of DOMA.”
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