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Obama evolves again on same-sex marriage

President Barack Obama has evolved again on the issue of same-sex marriage, saying he now believes that the U.S. Constitution requires states to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry.

"Ultimately, I think the Equal Protection Clause does guarantee same-sex marriage in all 50 states," Obama told The New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin, referring to language in the 14th Amendment requiring that states have valid reasons for discriminating between citizens.

The president's remark appeared to be an incremental change from an interview last year in which he stopped short of explicitly endorsing such a right, while seeming to say that there was a "strong basis" for the court's to make such a finding.

"I used to teach constitutional law and I think that there’s certainly a strong basis for determining that in fact in this age, given what we now know, given the changes that have been taking place in states around the country, that you know, same sex couples should be treated fairly and have the same rights to benefits and to being able to transfer property ... all the rights and recognition that I think heterosexual couples do," Obama told Univision last March.

Around the same time, the Obama told ABC that he "personally" could not think of a valid reason for a state to deny same-sex marriage. Since courts often find same-sex marriage rights by declaring a state's reasons to be illogical or improper, that statement was also a step in the direction of finding a federal constitutional right.

The most dramatic shift in Obama's public views on the issue, which he described as "evolving" back in 2010, came in 2012 when he said he favored giving same-sex couples all the rights of marriage. "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," he told ABC about six months before his reelection.

It will surely not go unnoticed in some quarters that Obama's endorsement of a federal constitutional right to gay marriage also comes in the lead-up to a pivotal election, in this case just weeks before a midterm in which turning out the Democratic base is judged to be critical to stemming the party's likely losses in Congress.

Despite the change of heart Obama announced in 2012, the Obama administration has never explicitly advocated a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage. When the Supreme Court took up the issue of California's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage last year, the Justice Department argued that a state could not take away same-sex marriage rights after granting them, but the U.S. government brief did not call on the court to recognize a 50-state right.

Obama also complicated the issue in many of his public remarks in recent years by seeming to favor a state-by-state approach that appeared to be at odds with the notion of a federal constitutional right.

In the New Yorker interview, Obama also analyzed the Supreme Court's recent decisions not to weigh in on the same-sex marriage issue again — at least not in the cases from five states presented for review over the summer.

"The decision that was just handed down to not do anything about what states are doing on same-sex marriage may end up being as consequential — from my perspective, a positive sense — as anything that’s been done,” the president said. “Because I think it really signals that although the Court was not quite ready — it didn’t have sufficient votes to follow Loving v. Virginia and go ahead and indicate an equal-protection right across the board — it was a consequential and powerful signal of the changes that have taken place in society and that the law is having to catch up.”

While the Justice Department has yet to file a legal brief formally asserting the existence of a federal constitutional right to same sex marriage, Attorney General Eric Holder said in an interview with Yahoo News last month that he believes such a right exists.

UPDATE (Tuesday, 1:21 A.M.): This post has been updated to reflect Holder's statement.

"I used to teach constitutional law and I think that there’s certainly a strong basis for determining that in fact in this age, given what we now know, given the changes that have been taking place in states around the country, that you know, same sex couples should be treated fairly and have the same rights to benefits and to being able to transfer property," Obama said in an interview with Univision taped at the White House. "All the rights and recognition that I think heterosexual couples do." - See more at: http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/washington/2013/03/obama-hopes-supreme-court-decision-treats-same-sex-couple-fairly.html#sthash.fNAsQcfh.dpuf



Read more here: http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com

/washington/2013/03/obama-hopes-supreme-court-decision-treats-same-sex-couple-fairly.html#storylink=cpIn the interview, Obama said the Supreme Court's recent decisions not to wade back into the same-sex marriage issue right now