Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) has introduced a bill that would repeal the reprehensible Defense of Marriage Act:

Civil Rights advocates and LGBT Americans herald new legislation to overturn one of the nation's most discriminatory laws

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO), along with Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) and Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), with a total of 91 original co-sponsors to date, introduced the Respect for Marriage Act in the House of Representatives. This legislation would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a 1996 law which discriminates against lawfully married same-sex couples.

The 13-year-old DOMA singles out legally married same-sex couples for discriminatory treatment under federal law, selectively denying them critical federal responsibilities and rights, including programs like social security that are intended to ensure the stability and security of American families.

The Respect for Marriage Act, the consensus of months of planning and organizing among the nation’s leading LGBT and civil rights stakeholders and legislators, would ensure that valid marriages are respected under federal law, providing couples with much-needed certainty that their lawful marriages will be honored under federal law and that they will have the same access to federal responsibilities and rights as all other married couples. Read on...

This legislation is long overdue. Three cheers for Rep. Nadler and the other Democratic co-sponsors in the House! Pam's House Blend has a list of responses from the LGBT community. You can read them here.

This is inspiring. Hopefully, we can look forward to the day when civil rights aren't a matter of geography and campaign strategies:

Massachusetts, the first state in the nation to legalize gay marriage, has become the first state to challenge the constitutionality of a federal law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman, saying Congress intruded into a matter that should be left to individual states.

"In enacting DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act), Congress overstepped its authority, undermined states' efforts to recognize marriages between same-sex couples, and codified an animus towards gay and lesbian people," the state said in a lawsuit filed today in US District Court in Massachusetts.

The lawsuit said that more than 16,000 same-sex couples have married in Massachusetts since the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled that gay marriage was legal in 2004 "and the security and stability of families has been strengthened in important ways throughout the state."

[...] The lawsuit argues that DOMA, which was enacted in 1996, precludes same-sex spouses from a wide range of protections, including federal income tax credits, employment and retirement benefits, health insurance coverage, and Social Security payments.