Julie Dorf and Jenni Olson were among many same-sex marriage supporters celebrating in San Francisco’s Castro District this week after the Supreme Court’s rulings on Proposition 8 and DOMA.
The couple, who have two daughters, aged 14 and 10, married in Canada in 2005. The DOMA decision means their family will now be eligible for over 1,000 federal benefits previously denied same-sex couples.
“On an annual basis, we can stop doing these crazy tax returns," said Dorf, a senior advisor for the Council for Global Equality and a leader in the LGBT rights international movement. "We pay extra money. We pretend we are married for the government and then we have to separate them. That will be simple and lovely to just be married in California and with the federal government. But mostly it's about letting our kids know. They were really impacted by the voters telling us that our family wasn't as equal as the families of all the other kids who have straight parents at school.”