"Obama’s Pen May Shape Scope of Marriage Ruling."

NYT headline. The article is about what the administration might have to do after the Supreme Court issues its opinion on the Defense of Marriage Act.

If the justices do strike it down, they will sweep aside a law that has for years prohibited gay couples from receiving a vast array of federal benefits that married couples take for granted. But whether gay couples actually get those benefits would depend on where they live — and how vigorously President Obama seeks to change the legal language that determines whether a couple is married in the eyes of the federal government....

Activists... are warning gay couples not to expect that federal benefits would arrive immediately, because government agencies vary widely in how they determine whether a couple is legally married.

Some federal agencies, like the I.R.S. and the Social Security Administration, make that determination by looking to the state where a couple lives....  Other agencies, like the Defense Department, already base their decision on the location of a couple’s wedding, regardless of where the couple lives now.... There are more than 1,100 places in the federal statutes where rights or benefits are based on a person’s marital status, according to one analysis by advocates for same-sex marriage....

Opponents of same-sex marriage say the legal questions surrounding the definition of marriage were a key argument behind the passage of the act in the first place....