New York City’s Stonewall celebrates the death of DOMA

Not long after Wednesday’s announcement of the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), dozens of New York City’s LGBT community members abandoned work and spilled into The Stonewall Inn.

By 1 p.m. the famous bar — now known as the landmark of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, which are said to have ignited the Gay Liberation Front of the 1970s — was bursting with merry patrons who laughed, drank, hugged and gave toasts.

Criss Dillard and her wife of five years, Christine Bagnasco, stood beside the bar and watched the room unfold in ecstatic festivity.

Both women work for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and said they “cannot wait to meet with the human resources department to talk about their health insurance benefits as a married couple.”

Now that the Defense of Marriage Act has been “killed,” the federal government will legally recognize marriages between same-sex couples, as well as the benefits that marriage carries for couples.