Obama criticizes Calif. gay marriage ban

WASHINGTON -- Citing the principle of equality that drove the nation's founding, President Barack Obama spoke out yesterday against California's ban on gay marriage and said the U.S. Supreme Court should strike it down.

A day after his administration filed a friend-of-the-court brief unequivocally calling on the justices to strike down California's Proposition 8 ballot measure, Obama said he felt there was no way for his administration to avoid the case.

"I felt it was important for us to articulate what I believe and what this administration stands for," he said.

The nation has gone through the same evolution he has gone through about how gay couples should be treated under the law, said Obama, who once opposed gay marriage but changed his position last year during his re-election campaign. "I think this is a profoundly positive thing," Obama said in a White House news conference.

The administration's brief outlined a broad legal argument that could be applied to other state prohibitions across the country, but stops short of the soaring rhetoric on marriage equality Obama expressed in his inaugural address in January.

Obama said the brief didn't explicitly argue that gay marriage should be made legal in every state because the case before the court deals specifically with California.

The brief is not legally binding, though the government's opinion could carry weight with the Supreme Court when it hears arguments on Proposition 8 in late March.

California is one of eight states that give gay couples all the benefits of marriage through civil unions or domestic partnership but don't allow them to wed. The brief argues that California has already acknowledged that gay relationships bear the same hallmarks as straight ones.