Same-Sex Spouse and Domestic Partner Benefits

In 2015, theU.S. Supreme Court held that the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment guarantee the right of same-sex couples to marry. That ruling gave same-sex couples the right to marry in all states and there is no basis for any state to refuse to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another state.¹

This decision was preceded by two other cases that expanded same-sex marriage rights. In 2013, the Court ruled that section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 (DOMA), which denied federal recognition of legally-married same-sex couples, was unconstitutional.²

In another case that year, the Supreme Court held that California’s “Proposition 8,” which