Federal Government To Recognize Same-Sex Marriages in Utah

(AP File Photo)

The Federal Government is recognizing the same-sex marriages that happened in Utah in between rulings during the ongoing court fight over the state’s gay marriage ban.

FOX News Radio’s Jessica Rosenthal reports:

For a brief time, gay couples in Utah were allowed to get married, 1,300 licenses were handed out. But the U.S. Supreme Court stopped more from happening during an appeal, and state officials said the marriages that had occurred would not be recognized, but that’s not how U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sees things at the federal level.

(Holder) “For purposes of federal law these marriages will be recognized as lawful and considered eligible for all relevant federal benefits on the same terms as other same sex marriages.”

He says that when the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act last year, that decision held that couples in same-sex marriages are entitled to equal protection.

Jessica Rosenthal, FOX News Radio.