WASHINGTON – Attorney General Eric Holder plans widespread changes within the U.S. Justice Department to benefit same-sex married couples, such as recognizing a legal right for them not to testify against each other in civil and criminal cases.

The changes, being unveiled by Holder in a speech on Saturday in New York, are designed to keep pushing for gay rights in the United States after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year said the federal government cannot refuse to recognize same-sex marriages carried out in states that allow them.

Gay marriage is permitted in only 17 of the 50 U.S. states, as well as the District of Columbia.

U.S. law has long included a “spousal privilege” that protects communications between a husband and wife so that they cannot be forced to incriminate one another in court.

In addition to extending the privilege to same-sex couples in situations involving the Justice Department, Holder said he plans to put same-sex couples on the same legal footing as opposite-sex couples in other areas, including how certain debts are handled in federal bankruptcy proceedings and visitation policies at federal prisons.

A written memo to department employees was sent out this week. It will “formally instruct all department employees to give lawful same-sex marriages full and equal recognition, to the greatest extent possible under the law,” according to the excerpts.

The Supreme Court in June struck down part of a 1996 federal law, the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. Edith Windsor, a lesbian widow, sued after the government forced her to pay additional estate taxes because it did not recognize her marriage.

Since then, President Barack Obama’s administration has aggressively implemented the ruling in contexts such as immigration and federal employee benefits.

Holder will also make same-sex married couples equally eligible for death benefits paid to the surviving spouses of law enforcement officers who have died on duty and for benefits from the September 11 victims’ compensation fund, according to the speech excerpts. The Justice Department runs both programs.