Who is a spouse for VA benefit purposes?
The United States Code and the Code of Federal Regulations – the rulebook for the VA – state that a spouse is a person of the opposite sex, whose marriage meets the requirements of the state in which the parties resided at the time of the marriage. [1]
The Supreme Court recently struck down a provision in the Defense of Marriage Act that stated that for federal purposes, a marriage between members of the same gender could not be valid. Why did the Supreme Court strike this down? Primarily because marriage has historically been a state law question. In other words, each state has defined the rules for marriage as that state sees fit.
Read more . . .