Thanks to Wikicommons.

President Obama (perhaps copying Facebook’s attitude) has changed the US governments policy on homosexual marriage.

The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act defined marriage as

only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ’spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.

Mr. Obama declared yesterday that this act was unconstitutional as it failed to provide equal protection under the law. Although this does not repeal the law (that is a job for the courts) it does mean that the Federal government will not fight legal challenges to the law.

This reversal is getting attention of people on both sides.

Republican Rick Santorum issued a strongly worded statement that

President Obama’s refusal to defend a law that was overwhelmingly supported on both sides of the aisle and signed into law by a president of his own party is an affront to the will of the people. This is yet another example of our president’s effort to erode the very traditions that have made our country the greatest nation on earth

The Human Right Campaign, America’s largest gay rights organization, hailed the Presidents decision with the organizations president, Joe Solomese, stating that

This is a monumental decision for the thousands of same-sex couples and their families who want nothing more than the same rights and dignity afforded to other married couples

Before anyone gets too excited (or up in arms) change is not coming immediately and may not at all.

For one thing, as a spokesman for the President noted, this only changes the legal defenses of the law as

the enforcement of the Defense of Marriage Act continues — the President is constitutionally bound to enforce the laws and enforcement of the DOMA will continue.

The law’s future is now out of Obama’s hands and into those of the nations courts.