The White House said today that President Obama is opposed to the anti-gay referenda in Maine and Washington state, calling them “divisive and discriminatory measures.” Kerry Eleveld of the Advocate reports:

In response to an inquiry from The Advocate, the White House issued the following statement regarding President Barack Obama’s position on anti-gay voter referenda in Maine and Washington. “The President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same-sex couples, and as he said at the Human Rights Campaign dinner, he believes ‘strongly in stopping laws designed to take rights away.’ Also at the dinner, he said he supports, ‘ensuring that committed gay couples have the same rights and responsibilities afforded to any married couple in this country.’”

That’s a strong statement from our President about the discrimination and divisiveness being pushed by anti-gay forces in Maine and Washington state. It should help a lot. Kudos to the White House on this one.

NOTE FROM JOHN: Joe is right. This is big. The White House, up until this point, has held off on weighing in regarding these anti-gay state efforts. But after Prop 8 passed in California, and the religious right used President Obama’s supposed opposition to gay marriage to get the measure passed, there was a lot of concern as to just how often the religious right was going to invoke our president’s name to justify bigotry and hate. Hopefully, all of that just stopped today. This is a very good thing.