In the wake of the Supreme Court arguments about same-sex marriage, there has been widespread agreement that the justices aren’t likely to create a right to gay marriage throughout the land—thereby invalidating the ban in 41 states that don’t perform it. And there has also been lots of confusion about what, practically speaking, a ruling that stopped short of legalizing gay marriage in 50 states would mean. If the Supreme Court leaves the laws of most states intact, but strikes down the part of the Defense of Marriage Act that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman, will it create “legal chaos” as the federal government tries to figure out which marriages to recognize where? Or is it relatively obvious which couples will receive federal benefits?