Right-wing media are already spinning falsehoods and fear-mongering about the federal government's administrative decision to recognize federal marriage benefits for same-sex couples who were married in Utah.

On December 20, a federal judge ruled that Utah's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Shortly thereafter, state officials began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. However, on January 6, the Supreme Court of the United States temporarily blocked the ruling as an appeal progressed -- halting the issuance of marriage licenses and causing a great deal of confusion for those couples who had already exchanged vows under state law.

In light of that confusion, Attorney General Eric Holder announced on January 10 that for purposes of federal law, legally married couples affected by the ruling would in fact be eligible to apply for federal marriage benefits while the litigation worked its way through the courts. As Holder observed, one of the core holdings of the landmark marriage equality decision of United  States v. Windsor is that the federal government is prohibited from discriminating against lawfully performed same-sex marriages.

Nevertheless, right-wing media were quick to overreact to Holder's announcement, with Rush Limbaugh accusing him of acting like "Stalinists." National Review Online joined Limbaugh in condemning Holder, calling it another example of the “lawlessness of the Obama administration.” From The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: So the states, when you've got people like Holder and Obama in office, it doesn't matter what governors do, it doesn't matter what the people of the state want. What Holder and Obama want is what's going to happen.  Holder does not have this kind of power or authority, but he does if nobody is going to stop him or challenge him.

[...]

So the law doesn't mean anything. Existing law doesn't mean anything if changes to it are being contemplated, and so the people of Utah -- same-sex marriage, yes, no, are now victims, and the federal government is just going to ride in and wave the powerful magic wand and say, “This is the way it's gonna be.”  So who needs governors?  You have the attorney general engaging in executive actions, executive orders, just as if Obama were to do it.  Stalinists, folks.

There is nothing lawless about the federal government making a determination about the disbursement of federal benefits. Doing so does not usurp the state's authority to recognize or acknowledge certain relationships for the purposes of state benefits. Holder's statement today does not require Utah or any other state to recognize same-sex marriages. Rather, it provides some certainty to couples whose marriages were legal under state law at the time they were performed. Among others, this legal opinion has been offered by Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, who informed state officials that “marriages between persons of the same sex were recognized in the state of Utah between the dates of December 20, 2013 until the stay on January 6, 2014. Based on our analysis of Utah law, the marriages were recognized at the time the ceremony was completed.”