9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Chief Judge Kozinski grants health benefits to same-sex partners

[usregimechange]

of court empolyees...

"Karen Golinski*has been denied a benefit of federal employment because she married a woman rather than a man. I previously determined that violates this court’s guarantee of equal employment opportunity...

The “agency” here is the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 5 U.S.C. § 5596(a)(2); 28 U.S.C. § 610, and I conclude that denying an employee a benefit based on her sex or sexual orientation violates one of our “mandatory personnel policies.”

http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/11/19/09-80173o.pdf