Benefits will now be offered to same-sex domestic partners of eligible federal workers, U.S. Postal workers and federal retirees. The Office of Personal Management will not extend access to opposite-sex domestic partners, because they can obtain the insurance through marriage, “an option not currently available to same-sex domestic partners,” the agency wrote in Tuesday’s Federal Register.

 All same-sex couples must still apply but will not be asked to submit formal documentation of their domestic partnership. Same-sex partners will be asked the same set of health questions as married couples and no one is automatically guaranteed coverage.

Marriage equality in the ‘Aloha State’ has a long history, as it was in 1991, in a decision by the State Supreme Court that invalidated laws that prohibited same sex couples from wedding. However as a reaction to this action, voters passed a constitutional amendment empowering the legislation to define marriage as a heterosexual insitution. That referenda did not close the door on civil unions though.

If approved, Hawaii will become one of six states including California, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington granting civil union status to same sex couples. Full civil marriage are legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, DC. Marriages performed in other states are recognized in Maryland, New York and Rhode Island.

The legislation has sparked an intense lobbying effort by the Catholic Archdiocese and many religious groups seeking a veto from Governor Lingle.

Reade more about Hawai’i’s new civil union law and the efforts surrounding the legislation in the Honolu Advertiser.

And for years, we’ve heard from gay couples about all the extra health, legal and other costs they bear. So we set out to determine what they were and to come up with a round number — a couple’s lifetime cost of being gay.

Here is what we came up with. In our worst case, the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs.

These numbers will vary, depending on a couple’s income and circumstance. Gay couples earning, say, $80,000, could have health insurance costs similar to our hypothetical higher-earning couple, but they might well owe more in income taxes than their heterosexual counterparts. For wealthy couples with a lot of assets, on the other hand, the cost of being gay could easily spiral into the millions.

Nearly all the extra costs that gay couples face would be erased if the federal government legalized same-sex marriage. One exception is the cost of having biological children, but we felt it was appropriate to include this given our goal of outlining every cost gay couples incur that heterosexual couples may not.

In challenging economic times, same-sex couples should be afforded the opportunity to invest in businesses to help grow the economy, not burdened by higher costs.

Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire have all decided to let gays wed. Most of the remaining 44 states, however, are not likely to follow suit anytime soon. So in the next few years, we will have a chance to compare social trends in the states permitting same-sex marriage against social trends in the others.

But with the experiment looming, some opponents seem to be doubting their own convictions. I contacted three serious conservative thinkers who have written extensively about the dangers of allowing gay marriage and asked them to make simple, concrete predictions about measurable social indicators — marriage rates, divorce, out-of-wedlock births, child poverty, you name it.

You would think they would react like Albert Pujols when presented with a hanging curveball. Yet none was prepared to forecast what would happen in same-sex marriage states versus other states.

In addition, the longstanding allegation that marriage equality would lead to the weakening of ‘traditional marriage’ and contribute to many societal ills such as higher divorce rates seems to be encountering exactly the opposite, as according to the National Center for Vital Statistics, Massachusetts, which has had same-sex marriage for over five years, has the lowest divorce rate in the nation.

As of September 2008, 52% of all same-sex couples living in Massachusetts were married; overall, the institute says, in the states that provide legal recognition, “more than 40%” of same-sex couples married, entered a civil union or otherwise have registered their relationships. On average, those couples spent 34% of what straight couples spent on their weddings. To estimate the financial impact of gay weddings were they legalized nationally, we multiplied the number of same-sex weddings by 34% of the amount straight couples would spend on such items as engagement rings, banquet halls, wedding dresses and honeymoons. Add it all up, and it comes to $9.5 billion.

Now, that money is going to states like Connecticut and Massachusetts, which have legalized gay and lesbian marriages–but it could come to New York.

Of course, the financial impacts of the wedding pales in comparison to the financial security that comes from marriage to benefit the couples–and in these economic times, no couple should be denied the financial security which comes from having their relationship recognized by the State.

In five years, the Bay State has reaped more then $111 million in economic benefits from gay and lesbian weddings, with the average ceremony running about $7,400 with many topping out over $20,000.

Meanwhile, many New Yorkers are hitting the rails and heading to Connecticut to marry.

All 69 same-sex couples married in Greenwich, CT, in 2009 were from out of state and neighboring Stanford has had 71 gay and lesbian weddings for non-residents since marriage equality became the law last November.

These weddings represent money and tax dollars that could come to New York, if only marriage were available to all New York couples.

“We’re in a time of economic crisis, and it’s difficult for everyone,” Dibble says, “more difficult for those families that don’t have access to those basic provisions for economic security.”

He says examples include the joint ownership of property; joint credit; the ability to share health-care benefits with a partner; and inheritance rights.

“People are beginning to understand that the rights and benefits and responsibilities and economic relationships that couples have with each other as a result of marriage or marriage-type laws are really basic to our ability to be able to provide for each other,” he adds.

“It’s really coming to light in context of this economic difficulty that we’re in the midst of.”

In these tough economic times, all couples deserve the financial and emotional stability that marriage provides.

Assemblywoman Janet Duprey has it right. Same-sex marriage is a civil-rights issue, and on that, the government has only one choice: to come down heavily in favor of the civil rights of everyone.

Maybe your religion frowns on homosexuality. That might certainly affect how you and your fellow worshippers feel about the issue. But it wouldn’t be any of the government’s concern.

Maybe your personal morality says marriage should be only between a man and a woman. That would surely dictate that you personally oppose homosexual marriage. But it shouldn’t propel the government into making a law against it.

Possibly, you oppose homosexual marriages because benefits such as tax breaks would accrue to more people at your expense as a taxpayer. There, perhaps the government has some soul-searching to do. But if it’s going to be fair about things, why should sexual inclination be the litmus test for who gets benefits and who doesn’t?

Their conclusion: all New Yorkers should have the same right to marry under the law–and that’s the right one.