Steve NeavlingMarried gay and lesbian couples should have the same rights in legal matters as other married couples, Attorney General Eric Holder announced this weekend.
The USA Today reports that Holder announced the new policy this weekend.
“In every courthouse, in every proceeding and in every place where a member of the Department of Justice stands on behalf of the United States, they will strive to ensure that same-sex marriages receive the same privileges, protections and rights as opposite-sex marriages under federal law,” Holder said to the Human Rights Campaign, a group advocating on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights.
The Justice Department plans to issue a memo today, instructing them that same-sex marriages carry the same full and equal recognition under the law.
Holder compared the struggle of gay rights to the civil rights in the 1960s. “Just like during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the stakes involved in this generation’s struggle for LGBT equality could not be higher,” Holder said. “Then, as now, nothing less than our country’s commitment to the notion of equal protection under the law was on the line.”
