HRC Blog

President Obama: Anti-LGBT Discrimination is “Not Who We Are as Americans”

March 13, 2013 by Dan Rafter, Online Campaigns Manager

President Obama will reiterate his support for marriage equality in an ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos set to air on ‘Nightline’ later tonight. In a transcript provided by ABC, the President tells Stephanopoulos that he sees no reason for any state to discriminate against loving, committed same-sex couples who want to marry:

My hope is that the Court looks at the evidence and- and in the California case, for example, the only reason presented for treating gays and lesbians differently was, "Well, they're gay and lesbian." There wasn't a real rationale beyond that. In fact…all the other rights and responsibilities of a civil union were identical to marriage. It's just you couldn't call it marriage. Well, at that point, what you're really saying is: "We're just gonna treat these folks differently because of who they are." And I do not think that's who are as Americans.

‘Nightline’ airs at 12:35am tonight.

Last month, the Obama administration made history by filing a brief at the Supreme Court arguing for the first time on behalf of the U.S. Government that a law denying loving and committed gay and lesbian couples the ability to marry is unconstitutional.