http://www.slate.com/id/2286200/pagenum/all/#p2
Indefensible
Why the Obama administration changed its mind about the Defense of Marriage Act.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2011, at 6:50 PM ET
The real surprise on Wednesday wasn't that the Obama administration decided it could no longer legally defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which mandates that the federal government not recognize same-sex marriages and stipulates that states need not recognize same-sex marriages from other states. It's that it took so long to get here. Recall that presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged to repeal the law, which he had called "abhorrent," in 2007. What needed to be bridged over the past two years was the distance between the president's personal views and his duty to defend a congressional statute.