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While gay marriage may have suffered tough defeats in California and Maine, the Washington Post notes that other benefits for same-sex couples are rapidly expanding on a number of fronts, lending new momentum to the gay-rights movement. In New York, state courts last week upheld new policies that grant spousal benefits to gay couples who married in another state or country. Federal judges in California also ruled last week to expand previously denied benefits to same-sex couples and a bill in Congress to provide benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees passed a key test in a House committee vote. "The picture on benefits and domestic partnerships has moved quite dramatically for same-sex couples, but marriage is the issue that has gotten all the attention and energy, so some of that progress has been eclipsed," Jane Schacter, a law professor at Stanford University, told the Post. "Certainly, there has been movement on marriage as well, but nothing as much as domestic partnerships."