Obama on gay marriage: Justice arrived 'like a thunderbolt'

President Barack Obama said the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide delivered justice “like a thunderbolt,” marking a dramatic evolution in social attitudes — and his own — regarding equal protections for LGBT Americans.

“Progress on this journey often comes in small increments, sometimes two steps forward, one step back, propelled by the persistent effort of dedicated citizens. And then sometimes, there are days like this, when that slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt,” Obama said, speaking in the Rose Garden.


In the landmark ruling, the court split 5-4 along the usual ideological lines, with Republican appointee Justice Anthony Kennedy joining the court’s liberal wing to establish a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

“In doing so,” he added, “they’ve reaffirmed that all Americans are entitled to the equal protection of the law, that all people should be treated equally regardless of who they are or who they love,” Obama said.

Just two days before the court’s decision, Obama reflected on society’s political shift at a reception for LGBT activists.

“A decade ago, politicians ran against LGBT rights,” Obama said. “Today, they’re running towards them. Because they’ve learned what the rest of the country knows — that marriage equality is about our civil rights, and our firm belief that every citizen should be treated equally under the law.”

He was one of those politicians.

Just as public opinion on gay rights has warmed in fits and starts from grudging tolerance to full acceptance, so has Obama’s. On a 1996 questionnaire when he was running for state senate in Illinois, Obama backed legalization and said he would “fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” But just two years later, running for re-election, he shifted to “undecided.”

He ruled out marriage in 2004, “primarily just as a strategic issue,” in an interview with the Windy City Times. While he was a “fierce supporter” of civil unions, he said, “I think that marriage, in the minds of a lot of voters, has a religious connotation. I know that’s true in the African-American community, for example.”

Even then, he wrote in his 2006 memoir, he remained “open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided.”

Still, he ran for president in 2007 and 2008 as someone who drew the line at gay marriage, sometimes citing his Christian faith, and he retained that position even as he called for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act — which restricted federal benefits for same-sex couples in civil unions as well as marriages — six months into taking office.

Obama’s “thunderbolt” might have come in the form of Vice President Joe Biden in May 2012, just as their campaign for re-election was ramping up.

“I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men marrying women are entitled to the same exact rights,” Biden said that month on “Meet the Press.”

In the immediate aftermath, aides tried to claim that there was no daylight between Obama and Biden, that Biden was making an argument about legal rights. But three days later, on May 9, Obama sat for an interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts, when he told her, “I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

In his own statement after Friday’s ruling, Biden said, “We couldn’t be prouder. Over the years —in their homes, on our staff, on the frontlines of war, and in houses of worship — Jill and I have befriended countless gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans who share a love for their partners constrained only by social stigma and discriminatory laws. But today, their love is set free with the right to marry and the recognition of that marriage throughout the country.”

Obama was in his his residence on Friday morning, a White House spokesman said, working on his eulogy for the pastor slain with eight other black worshipers last week, when senior adviser Valerie Jarrett called to inform him of the ruling.

Obama’s Rose Garden statement — delivered just before leaving to give that eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney in Charleston — was his second in as many days praising a high court decision. On Thursday, Obama had a substantial part of his legacy sealed when the Supreme Court upheld a major component of his Obamacare health law.

Before speaking from the White House on Friday, Obama spoke on the phone with Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the Obergefell v. Hodges case.

“This ruling is a victory for Jim Obergefell and the other plaintiffs in the case. It’s a victory for gay and lesbian couples who have fought so long for their basic civil rights. It’s a victory for their children, whose families will now be recognized as equal to any other,” he added. “It’s a victory for the allies and friends and supporters, who spent years even decades working and praying for change to come. And this ruling is a victory for America. This decision affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts: When all Americans are treated as equal, we are all more free.”

Earlier on Twitter, Obama lauded the decision as “a big step in our march toward equality. Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like anyone else. #LoveWins,” Obama tweeted from his @POTUS handle. The message was retweeted more than 200,000 times by mid-day on Friday.

Today is a big step in our march toward equality. Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like anyone else. #LoveWins — President Obama (@POTUS) June 26, 2015