With the passage of the New York State Marriage Equality Act, effective July 24, 2011, New York became the fifth state, along with Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia, to permit same-sex marriage.1 Specifically, the act provides that “no government treatment or legal status, effect, right, benefit, privilege, protection, or responsibility relating to marriage…shall differ based on the parties to the marriage being or having been of the same sex rather than a different sex.” While this language is straightforward, its impact on employee benefits is made surprisingly complicated by conflicting federal laws. This article provides guidance to employers attempting to apply the act in the context of these conflicting laws, including the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), and the Internal Revenue Code (Code).
The Act and DOMA
Historically, the definition of marriage has been left to the states’ domain, without federal intervention. While the definitions may have varied from state to state (e.g., whether certain relatives are permitted to marry each other, the age at which people may marry, etc.), for the most part, states granted reciprocity to marriages legally entered into in other states. This changed in 1997, when the federal government adopted DOMA, which provided that, for purposes of federal law, “marriage” can only be between one man and one woman. DOMA also provided that states need not recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
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