To all of my gay friends, your financial life just got a whole lot more complicated. Since The Supreme Court voted that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was unconstitutional it now means that all of the federal financial regulation now applies to you and your partner at the federal level.
So now the following areas apply to you and your partner as a combined entity: insurance benefits for government employees, social security survivors' benefits, immigration, bankruptcy, retirement accounts and the filing of joint tax returns. There are many more though.
1,049 federal statutory provisions classified to the United States Code in which benefits, rights, and privileges are contingent on marital status or in which marital status is a factor.
If you are married or plan to get married everything in your estate needs to be looked at by experienced CPA. Your financial world just did a 180.