President Barack Obama, appearing on ABC’s “The View,” declined to say whether he would publicly take up the fight to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), but in a campaign fundraiser later in the day, seemed to imply that repealing DOMA would be a second-term priority.
“Congress is clearly on notice that I think it’s a bad idea,” Obama said regarding DOMA during “The View” interview, which was recorded Monday morning.
But later in the day, at a New York City fundraising event hosted by openly gay singer Ricky Martin, Obama said he believes marriage equality “strengthens families,” and said the 2012 election would be about values — including “repealing DOMA.”
It’s been said that this election is going to be about values, and I absolutely agree. It’s about the economic values we have, about the values that I believe are what makes America so special — the idea that everybody gets a fair shot, everybody does their fair share, everybody plays by the same set of rules.
So everything we do — from Wall Street reform, making sure that banks aren’t taking risks with other people’s money that taxpayers may have to end up bailing out later, to repealing DOMA, to getting the DREAM Act passed, to investing in our schools, to rebuilding manufacturing in America — all of these things are designed to make sure that we’re restoring middle-class security for all those folks out there that are struggling for their small portion of the American Dream.
“This is going to be a big contrast in the campaign because you’ve got Governor [Mitt] Romney saying we should actually have a constitutional amendment installing the notion that you can’t have same-sex marriages,” Obama said, during “The View” appearance, which aired Tuesday.
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The President added that ultimately, he doesn’t think social issues such as same-sex marriage will determine the outcome of the November election.
The full interview and additional excerpts from “The View” are here.
