After the gay marriage ban Proposition 8 was quashed, gay inmates in California can now marry their same-sex partners, the Associated Press reports. 

In an Aug. 30 memo, state prison officials said that due to the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that "effectively invalidated" Proposition 8, they "must accept and process applications for a same-sex marriage between an inmate and a non-incarcerated person in the community, in the same manner as they do between opposite sex couples."

Yet there is a caveat in that statement...While a gay inmate can marry a person who is not jailed, two gay inmates cannot get married. California prison officials state in the memo that there are "security concerns and other legitimate penological interests" for why two gay inmates cannot wed.

Michael Stainer, director of the adult institutions division for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, issued a memo on Friday stating that the U.S. Supreme Court decision that made same-sex marriages legal again in the state in June also applies to prisoners.

Stainer reitereated that gay or bisexual inmates will only be allowed to marry same-sex partners who are not incarcerated and only during prison ceremonies. He says marriages between two prisoners would raise too many security concerns.

Same-sex marriages between an inmate and someone who's not incarcerated can only take place at a jail facility where the inmate is held, but a prison chaplain can refuse to marry the couple based on religious grounds. Prison officials will only allow a person who is "lawfully authorized" to come and perform the ceremony.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration on Wednesday escalated its effort to dismantle federal barriers to same-sex marriages, announcing that the Department of Veterans Affairs would immediately begin providing spousal benefits to gay men and lesbians despite a federal statute that limits such benefits to veterans' spouses who are "of the opposite sex."

In letters to Congressional leaders, Attorney General Eric Holder said President Obama had directed the executive branch to stop obeying the statute because it had decided that it was unconstitutional in light of a Supreme Court ruling in June that struck down a similar law, a part of the Defense of Marriage Act.

"Decisions by the Executive not to enforce federal laws are appropriately rare," Mr. Holder wrote. "Nevertheless, for the reasons described below, the unique circumstances presented here warrant nonenforcement."

The move will allow the same-sex spouses of service members to receive health care benefits, and widows and widowers from same-sex marriages to receive survivor benefits, among other matters.