Washington (CNN) - The Obama administration on Thursday formally expressed its support of same-sex marriage in California, setting up a high stakes political and constitutional showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court over a fast-evolving and contentious issue.
In a broadly worded legal brief that senior government sources say had President Barack Obama's personal input and blessing, the Justice Department asserted gay and lesbian couples in the nation's largest state have the same "equal protection" right to wed and that voters there were not empowered to ban it.