Attorney General Eric Holder has
reiterated that the Department of Justice (DOJ) will urge the Supreme
Court to strike down state bans on gay marriage.
Justices will hold a closed-door
meeting on Monday to discuss petitions from five cases challenging
bans in Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Indiana and Wisconsin.
Holder, who announced his resignation
on Thursday but will remain on the job until his successor takes
over, made his comment in an interview with NBC's Pete Williams.
"I expect that the Justice
Department will file a brief and the brief will be consistent with
the positions that we have taken in the past in support of same-sex
marriage. I can't imagine that that would be – that we would take
any other position in – while this president is in office, and
certainly as long as I am attorney general, or anybody who is my
successor,” Holder
said.
“Is the country ready for that?”
Williams asked.
“Yeah, I think the country is ready
for that. I think all the polls certainly show that. The reactions
to the continuing number of court cases that have found same-sex
marriage to be constitutionally mandated – the polls have shown
that the American people, I think, are prepared to accept that. Now
this has been a sea change. This is something that has happened, I
think, relatively quickly. Part of it is generational. I talk to my
kids, who seem, no problems with this, no issues with this at all.
But I think it's more than a generational change. I think that
people who know folks who are gay, who are lesbian, and who are their
friends, their coworkers, they see the moral side to this. It's a
civil-rights issue. From my perspective, it is the civil-rights
issue of our day – gay and lesbian equality.”
Appearing on ABC's This Week in
July, Holder said he believes such bans “will not survive a
heightened scrutiny examination” and that the DOJ will file
documents with the Supreme Court that “will be in support of
same-sex marriage.”