Pentagon moves to extend benefits to gay spouses

Jim Michaels and Tom Vanden Brook | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department said Wednesday it would immediately begin the process that will lead to providing benefits to the spouses of military servicemembers in same-sex marriages.

The announcement follows the Supreme Court ruling striking down part of a law that denied federal benefits to married same-sex couples.

"The Department of Defense intends to make the same benefits available to all military spouses -- regardless of sexual orientation -- as soon as possible," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a prepared statement.

The benefits include medical care, housing allowance and internment at Arlington National Cemetery.

"We'll follow the law of the land and the law of the law has just changed," Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon press briefing.

The Pentagon said the changes would extend a range of benefits to same sex married spouses, including medical, internment at Arlington and housing allowance.

It is not clear how long that process will take, but the Pentagon said it would take six to 12 weeks to overhaul the system that provides identification cards to the spouses of servicemembers.

The Pentagon said it has not yet determined how much the changes will cost taxpayers.

"There is going to be a whole range of new options opening up to same-sex couples in the military," said Alex Nicholson, legislative director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which has opposed the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.

The act, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, prevented the Defense Department from providing many of the benefits that would go to marriages between a man and a woman. The Supreme Court ruled part of the act unconstitutional Wednesday.

Advocates say the military has likely been planning for the possibility of the ruling and should be able to roll out benefits fairly quickly.

"My expectation is they've prepared for this," said Stephen Peters, president of American Military Partner Association.