**UPDATE** Now With Video
Tonight on The Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel Maddow and NBC News Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd reported that President Obama announced he will extend benefits to same-sex partners of Federal employees. It is a memorandum, not an executive order, so it would not be effective if Obama left office, unless it were later codified into law. Benefits are effective as of tomorrow.
Maddow and Todd suggested that this move was in response to last week’s DOJ/DOMA brief that has overtaken the news throughout the Internet.
**UPDATE II**
The New York Times reports,
“The decision is a political nod to a reliably Democratic voting bloc that in recent weeks has grown frustrated with the White House’s slow movement on their priorities.
Several powerful gay fundraisers withdrew their support from a June 25 Democratic National Committee event where Vice President Joe Biden is expected to speak. Their exit came in response to a June 12 Justice Department brief that defended the Defense of Marriage Act, a prime target for gay and lesbian criticism. Justice lawyers argued that the law allowed states to reject marriages performed in other states or countries that defy their own standards.
The legal arguments — including citing incest and sex with minors — sparked rebellion among gay and lesbian activists who had been largely biting their tongues since Obama won election. They had objected to the Rev. Rick Warren’s invitation to participate in the inauguration despite his support for repealing gay marriage in California.
Their January protest won the invitation of Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson, whose consecration as the first openly gay bishop divided and almost split his denomination.”