President Barack Obama on Wednesday
reiterated his support for Congress doing away with the Defense of
Marriage Act (DOMA), the law that forbids federal agencies from
recognizing the legal marriages of gay and lesbian couples.
Speaking at a White House roundtable,
the president called the law “unfair” and “unconstitutional.”
DOMA will be “settled fairly soon,
because right now we have cases pending in the federal courts.”
“Administratively, we can't ignore
the law. DOMA is still on the books. What we have said is even as
we enforce it, we don't support it, we think it's unconstitutional,”
Obama said.
“I can't comment on where the case is
going to go. I can only say what I believe and that is that DOMA
doesn't make sense; it's unfair; I don't think that it meets the
demands of our constitution. And in the meantime, if – I've
already said that I'm also supportive of Congress repealing DOMA on
its own and not waiting for the courts. The likelihood of us being
able to get the votes in the House of Representatives for DOMA repeal
are very low at this point so, truthfully, the recourse to the courts
is probably going to be the best approach.” (The video is embedded
in the right panel of this page.)