President Obama's administration for the first time urged the U.S. Supreme Court to legalize gay marriage nationwide, throwing its weight behind same-sex couples seeking a historic civil rights ruling.
Obama's top courtroom lawyer, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, told the justices Friday that state bans on gay marriage "send the inescapable message that same-sex couples and their children are second-class families."
The filing sets up the administration to argue alongside gay-rights advocates when the nine justices hear arguments on April 28. The court is likely to rule in late June.
The administration's brief completes a shift on the issue for Obama, who ran for president in 2008 as a supporter of civil unions for gay couples, but not marriage.
Even after Obama backed gay marriage publicly in 2012, his administration took a more nuanced view in court. When the Supreme Court considered the issue in 2013, the administration stopped short of urging nationwide legalization, instead taking a position that would have added eight new gay-marriage states.
Gay couples can now marry in more than two-thirds of the country, largely because of court rulings that have overturned bans. The high court showdown involves couples from Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee.
The administration's 36-page brief takes a somewhat different tack from those couples. Unlike the suing couples, the Obama administration doesn't make the case that the states lack any "rational basis" for restricting marriage to heterosexual unions.
Verrilli contended that laws discriminating against gays should be given "heightened scrutiny," a standard the court has previously used to protect women and racial minorities.
