The notice of the change says that it does not mean the State Department is recognizing the validity of same-sex marriages and civil unions, but that it was to comply with an amendment to the Code of Federal Regulations that took effect in February 2008.

The name-change revision took effect May 27 in an addition to the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual. It allows same-sex couples to obtain passports under the names recognized by their state through their marriages or civil unions.

Keith and Al Toney, of Holden, learned of the change this week and expressed relief at the end of an effort that began in 2007, when Keith applied for a passport under his married name but was denied.

“We’ll probably be going back to Costa Rica in August, and just knowing that I don’t have to hand over a passport that I considered fraudulent … just knowing that I have an accurate passport, I feel like I can hold my head up high,” Keith Toney said.

The move is separate from steps Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton took this week to grant some of the same benefits to the partners of gay diplomats as those available to spouses in heterosexual marriages.

Still, groups opposed to gay marriage criticized the name-change provision, saying it erodes the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits federal recognition of any same-sex partnerships.

“It’s an exercise that the current administration is using to try to nibble away at the Defense of Marriage Act,” said Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute.

“There’s no doubt that President Obama has made a strong commitment to repeal the DOMA … and it will take an act of Congress to do so,” Mineau said. “He cannot circumvent the law, but he attempts to do so not head-on, but in an oblique approach.”

Obama said he wants to see the Defense of Marriage Act repealed. But he’s been heavily criticized by gay rights groups for not moving quickly enough on his campaign promises to expand gay rights.

Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, a New York-based group that campaigns nationally for gay marriage rights, said the change in passport regulations is a “very small step in the right direction,” but falls “far short of the work that needs to happen to keep the federal government from discriminating against gay couples across the country.”

The Toneys got married in 2004, shortly after Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. Keith, whose unmarried name is Fitzpatrick, was rejected when he applied for a passport as Keith Toney. The passport agency cited the Defense of Marriage Act.

Keith Toney was forced to get a passport in his old name so he could travel with his spouse and daughter to Costa Rica, where the family owns a vacation home, he said.

During previous trips, he said, he was repeatedly questioned about why the name on his passport differed from the name on his other forms of identification, including his Massachusetts driver’s license, which had his married name.

“It was degrading, it really was,” he said.

The couple later joined a lawsuit challenging the act filed by the Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders.

GLAD received a letter from the Justice Department this week, informing the group of the change and inviting Keith Toney to submit a passport renewal application with his married name. He plans to submit his application to the Boston Passport Agency on Monday.

The separate changes instituted this week by the State Department include the right of domestic partners to hold diplomatic passports, government-paid travel to and from foreign posts, the use of U.S. medical facilities abroad, eligibility for U.S. government emergency evacuations, and training at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute.

Clinton announced the measures after Obama’s decision on Wednesday to grant some benefits to the same-sex partners of gay federal employees.

Unmarried same-sex couples may suffer greater fear and anxiety around end of life issues than those in state-sanctioned unions, according to the findings.

The research was conducted by scientists at San Francisco State University,  the University of Minnesota and George Washington University. It appears this month in the journal Sexuality Research and Social Policy.

“We are just beginning to explore the effects of legal recognition of relationships among lesbian and gay adults,” said Brian deVries, professor of gerontology and lead author of the study.

DeVries said that lesbian and gay baby boomers who live in states that do not legally recognize same-sex couples are more likely to have prepared for the end of life by completing such documents as living wills than those who live in states that do recognize their relationships. 

At the same time, these lesbian and gay people, single or part of a couple, are more likely to have greater fears and anxieties about end of life and later life issues. 

“The bottom line is that those who reside in states that do not recognize relationships or sanctioned marriages between same-sex couples feel less cared for and less cared about and must take extra legal steps to prepare for their later years,” deVries said. 

“The absence of recognition of same-sex relationships conveys a sense of second-class citizenship and a stress associated with such unwelcome status.” 

The findings were based on responses to a survey in which 797 gay and lesbian boomers were questioned about their fears regarding end of life issues and preparations for later life. Those queried were women and men, both single and couples, living in states that did and did not legally recognize marriage between same-sex partners.

The study, by the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles, found there are approximately 55,000 lesbian, gay, and bisexual black adults living in California and the state is home to 7,400 black men and women in same-sex relationships.

At 9 percent, it makes California home to the second-largest percentage of the nation’s coupled black men and women.

The study also shows that nearly 55 percent of black women and 11 percent of back men in same-sex couples in California are raising children.

But when compared to opposite-sex black families, gay families have far lower incomes.

“These analyses break stereotypes about gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, like the idea that they are all wealthy.  We find that gay and bisexual black men in California have household incomes that are 44 percent lower than their heterosexual counterparts,” said study co-author Christopher Ramos.

Black gay and bisexual men have median household incomes averaging $25,000 compared to $45,000 for their straight counterparts.

Black women in same-sex couples earn, on average, less than black men in different-sex marriages as well as black males in same-sex couples in California.

The median household income of black individuals in same-sex couples with children is $60,900, less than the $76,000 median household income of black parents in different-sex marriages, the study found.

“African-American men and women raising children in same-sex couples experience economic disadvantage compared to their different-sex married counterparts with lower household incomes and home ownership rates,” said Williams Institute Senior Research Fellow Gary Gates.

The homeownership rate of black individuals in same-sex couples raising children is 29 percent compared to 63 percent of those in different-sex marriages raising children.

Opponents of same-sex marriage who are pressing for passage of the constitutional ban on gay unions are targeting black voters who traditionally support traditional marriage.  In an election year where Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is expected to bring out a massive black vote, there are concerns those voters will support the ballot measure.

A recent poll found growing support for the amendment in California.

The SurveyUSA poll, taken for four TV stations across the state, found that 47 percent of likely voters would support the measure, known as Prop. 8, with 42 percent opposing it.