As we await the ruling from Judge Vaughn Walker on Perry v. Schwarzenegger, we just received word about a decision in two marriage equality suits. A federal judge in Massachusetts just ruled that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal law passed in 1996 that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriage and enables states to withhold recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other states, is unconstitutional.

The ruling in the cases, Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Health and Human Services and Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, does not strike down DOMA in its entirety. But what it does appear to do is to remove the ban on the federal government's recognition of same-sex marriage.