Barack Obama has been both praised and criticised a day after he became the first sitting US president to publicly support gay marriage.
Social conservatives and
religious leaders condemned his remarks.
Meanwhile, the Obama
campaign attacked Republican Mitt Romney, who restated his opposition to
same-sex marriage, as out of touch on the issue.
Mr Obama travelled to
the West Coast on Thursday for fundraisers in Seattle and Los Angeles likely to
raise millions.
One fundraiser, to be
held at the home of George Clooney, is expected on its own to raise $15m
(£9.3m), partially from a general raffle offering members of the public the
chance to meet the Hollywood actor.
In the wake of his
interview with ABC News, gay advocates applauded Mr Obama's remarks.
Human Rights Campaign
President Joe Solmonese said that the president's comments would "inspire
thousands more conversations around kitchen tables and in church pews".
'Deeply
saddening'
But Cardinal Timothy
Dolan, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, labelled Mr Obama's
remarks "deeply saddening".
"We cannot be
silent in the face of words or actions that would undermine the institution of
marriage, the very cornerstone of our society," he said in a statement.
"The people of this country, especially our children, deserve
better."
On Thursday morning, the
Obama campaign sought to capitalise on the president's political gamble by
releasing an internet video titled Mitt Romney: Backwards on
Equality.
It shows a clip of Mr
Romney, the Republican who is expected to challenge Mr Obama for the White
House in November, saying on Wednesday that he opposes gay marriage.
The video says that even
former Republican President George W Bush supported civil unions, a step short
of marriage.
On Wednesday evening,
the Republican-controlled House of Representatives moved to reinforce the
Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act (Doma).
By 245-171, lawmakers
voted to prevent the justice department from using taxpayer funds to actively
oppose the act, which prevents gay marriages from being recognised at the
federal level.
Mr Obama ordered the
department to stop actively defending Doma in February 2011.
The vote's sponsor,
Kansas Republican Tim Huelskamp, said it was not Mr Obama's
"prerogative" to decide "which laws matter and which do
not".
Mr Obama broke from his
long-claimed indecision on the issue of gay marriage to express outright
support for the right of homosexual couples to marry, in an interview on
Wednesday with ABC News.
The US president
acknowledged that his interview had been prompted by Vice-President Joe Biden's
remarks on Sunday that he was "absolutely comfortable" with gay
marriage.
He said he had planned
to speak on the issue before the Democratic convention in September, and would
have preferred to have "done this in my own way, on my own terms without,
I think, there being a lot of notice".
In 2010, Mr Obama said
his views on the issue of gay marriage were "evolving", a stance that
had frustrated gay rights supporters and donors.
However, Mr Obama's
newly declared stance does little to change the legal status for gay people who
wish to wed in states where such marriages are outlawed. Thirty-one US states
have passed constitutional amendments or legislation against same-sex marriage.
'Bible's
against that'
On Tuesday, North
Carolina approved a constitutional amendment - 61% in favour and 39% against -
effectively banning same-sex marriage or civil unions.
US
gay marriage laws
·
Same-sex
marriage has been passed in New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Iowa,
Vermont, Washington DC, Connecticut, Maryland and Washington
·
Thirty-one
US states have banned same-sex marriage through law or constitutional amendment
A Gallup poll on
Tuesday suggested
that 50% of Americans were in favour of legalising gay marriage - a slightly
lower proportion than last year - while 48% said they would oppose such a move.
Mr Obama's announcement
is seen as politically risky in the upcoming election, especially in the South,
where one in three swing voters strongly opposes allowing gays and lesbians to
wed. Mr Obama narrowly won North Carolina in the 2008 election.
BBC North America editor
Mark Mardell says the Obama campaign hopes the announcement will energise
younger voters.
But Mr Obama's remarks
may not play so well with religious African-American voters, a key Obama voting
bloc. Recent polling
suggeststhat
support for gay marriage among black church-goers remains lower than many other
groups.
Pentecostal Pastor
Charles Bargaineer, of the largely black New Fellowship Church of God in
Florida, told the Associated Press he was troubled by the president's position.
"I don't think
that's appropriate for the president," Mr Bargaineer told Reuters news
agency. "The Bible's strictly against that."
When asked whether he
would vote again for Mr Obama, Mr Bargaineer said: "I'll have to pray
about that."
Reverend Scott Clark, a
gay pastor from the San Francisco Theological Seminary, said it had been
"deeply moving" to hear Mr Obama "finally acknowledge the full
dignity and humanity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and our
families".
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