Benefits

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The Governor of Maryland has notified state employees that shared benefits for domestic partners will end on December 31, and if they want to continue their health insurance coverage, they'll have to get married. [ Read more → ]

EL PASO, Texas -- Cities and counties that offer same-sex partner health benefits don't anticipate altering their policies after the Texas attorney general called the practice unconstitutional, though his opinion does serve as fuel for litigation against entities providing benefits to gay couples. [ Read more → ]

LANSING, Mich. — A decision to provide health insurance to same-sex domestic partners of Michigan state government employees has been left intact. [ Read more → ]

AUSTIN, Texas -- Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has issued an opinion stating that local governments and school districts that offer marriage benefits to same-sex partners are violating the state constitution. [ Read more → ]

SALEM, Ore. -- A federal appellate judge ruled this week the judiciary must grant health care benefits to the same-sex spouse of a federal public defender in Portland, and ruled that Oregon's same-sex marriage ban, enacted by voters in 2004, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act are both unconstitutional. [ Read more → ]

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Connecticut lawmakers are seeking to restore state benefits to gay and lesbian veterans discharged under the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. On Wednesday, the Senate voted 34-0 in favor of legislation making veterans eligible for state benefits if they've been... [ Read more → ]

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Monday introducing the Tax Parity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act, a bill that would end the taxation of employer-provided health insurance for domestic partners, as well as the penalty imposed on employers who provide equal benefits to their LGBT employees. [ Read more → ]

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Buncombe County, N.C., commissioners voted 4-3 on Tuesday to begin offering health and other benefits to the same-sex partners of county employees. [ Read more → ]

A pair of bills introduced in the U.S. Congress this week would change the definition of "spouse" in four areas of U.S. Code related to recognition, support, and benefits for married service members and veterans, in an effort to provide key military benefits for same-sex spouses of gay service members. [ Read more → ]

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on Monday announced he will extend to nearly the full extent permitted under current law the benefits available to gay and lesbian service members and their families. [ Read more → ]

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials said Tuesday that outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is poised to extend some benefits to the same-sex partners of military members. [ Read more → ]

SAN FRANCISCO -- The San Francisco Health Commission, the governing and policy-making body of the city's Department of Public Health, announced Tuesday its intent to remove transgender exclusions from the "Healthy San Francisco" health access program. [ Read more → ]

DALLAS -- The Dallas County Commissioners on Tuesday voted to begin giving a stipend to unmarried and gay employees whose partners purchase individual health insurance because they aren’t eligible for coverage under the county’s benefits program. [ Read more → ]

The U.S. Supreme Court has set at least three cases related to marriage equality and same-sex partner benefits for conference on Sept. 24, including the federal case against California’s Proposition 8, the 2008 voter-approved constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. [ Read more → ]

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- The Indianapolis City-County Council has approved an ordinance to provide health-care benefits to the domestic partners of city employees. [ Read more → ]

Nearly two years after a complaint was filed charging that "Healthy San Francisco," the city's health insurance program for uninsured residents, is discriminatory because it excludes services for transgender people, city officials are in the process of rectifying the situation and including such services in the program. [ Read more → ]

Gay federal employees will be able to cover the children of their same-sex partners under the federal health insurance plan once a proposed rule published Friday by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is enacted. [ Read more → ]

PHOENIX -- Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a federal appeals court ruling that allows Arizona's state employees to keep their same-sex partners benefits, including health insurance. [ Read more → ]

A proposed new law would let the Army recognize the spouses of service-members for the first time ever. Anti-gay activists in Maryland collect enough signatures to force a referendum, but now they're tens of thousands of dollars in debt. And seven years after legalizing marriage equality, Spain finally lets gay and lesbian couples into the dictionary. [ Read more → ]

The ranking Democrat on the U.S. House Armed Services Committee has introduced a bill that would exempt the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs from the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 federal law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. [ Read more → ]