Barack Obama: I think the Constitution guarantees equal marriage in 50 states
Barack Obama has weighed in on ongoing legal battles surrounding same-sex marriage, to say he believes that equal marriage is a Constitutional right.
The US President, who officially opposed marriage equality until 2012, has revealed he now believes that banning same-sex marriage is a violation of the Constitution.
He told the New Yorker: “Ultimately, I think the Equal Protection Clause does guarantee same-sex marriage in all fifty states.
“But, as you know, courts have always been strategic. There have been times where the stars were aligned and the Court, like a thunderbolt, issues a ruling like [anti-segregation ruling] Brown v. Board of Education, but that’s pretty rare.
“And, given the direction of society, for the Court to have allowed the process to play out the way it has may make the shift less controversial and more lasting.
“The bulk of my nominees, twenty years ago or even ten years ago, would have been considered very much centrists, well within the mainstream of American jurisprudence, not particularly fire-breathing or ideologically driven.
“So the fact that now Democratic appointees and Republican appointees tend to vote differently on issues really has more to do with the shift in the Republican Party and in the nature of Republican-appointed jurists … Democrats haven’t moved from where they were.”
