Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson continued to press White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on President Obama’s 1996 support for same-sex marriage at today’s press briefing, leading Gibbs to again dodge the question by re-stating Obama’s now much more conservative position on the issue. At one point Gibbs even seems to accept Johnson’s premise that Obama has to “re-claim” his earlier progressive support for marriage equality:

GIBBS: I was not with the President in 1996…I would simply say that throughout the campaign of 2004 and the campaign of 2008, he’s made his position clear on that.

JOHNSON: Was there a political motivation for the President to drop his support for same-sex marriage as he sought higher office?

GIBBS: Again, I would refer you to my previous answer. [...]

JOHNSON: Will the President re-claim his support for same-sex marriage before the 2012 election?

GIBBS: I’m not in the business of predicting. I think you’ve seen this President be clearly committed to issues of equality and justice…I can speak to 2011 as a year in which a policy like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will end.

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In 1996, while running for state senate, Obama told the newspaper Outlines that he supported same-sex marriage, saying “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages,and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” Since running for national office, Obama has devloved back to his current position of only supporting civil unions but has recently suggested that he may again “evolve” on the issue. Johnson asked Gibbs a similar question last week.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs suggested that President Obama’s “evolving” view on same-sex marriage will not evolve any further in his upcoming State of the Union address, telling reporters at an afternoon press briefing that “I’m not aware that there is any change coming on that in the State of the Union at this point.” At an end of the year press conference in December, Obama said that he struggles with the issue of marriage and hinted that he may soon move beyond simply supporting civil unions.

Gibbs also defended the Justice Department’s recent brief supporting the constitutionality of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which bans the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. Gibbs argued that even though the administration would like to see the law repealed, the Justice Department has a responsibility to “represent the viewpoint of the defendant.” He described the chances of repeal passing in the current Congress as “inordinately challenging”:

CHIS JOHNSON, Washington Blade : Do you still see repeal happening in the course of the Obama administration?

GIBBS: Given the current make-up of the Congress, that is inordinately challenging and I think he said so in interviews.

JOHNSON: Are there any regrets about not pushing for repeal more forcefully when Democrats had control of both chambers of Congress?

GIBBS: I think we are enormously proud of and grateful for the progress that we have been able to make. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was an achievement of — I think it will be thought of not just of this administration, but for all those involved, a monumental achievement in bringing equality and justice back….Obviously, we didn’t get everything we wanted to get done done, but we’re proud of what we did get done.

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Some scholars and LGBT leaders have argued that the administration is under no obligation to defend DOMA if it believes the law to be unconstitutional and have called on Obama to drop his defense of the law. “The administration claims that it has a duty to defend the laws that are on the books. We simply do not agree. At the very least, the Justice Department can and should acknowledge that the law is unconstitutional,” Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese said when the brief was filed last week.

In 2009, Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Jared Polis (D-CO) introduced The Respect for Marriage Act of 2009, which would repeal the DOMA and allow the government to provide benefits to married gay couples.

During this afternoon’s White House press briefing, the Advocate’s Kerry Eleveld pressed Robert Gibbs on why the President has not been more bullish in pressing the Senate to pass repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell during the lame duck session. Arguing that Obama has used his bully pulpit to press Congress to act on START and has even appeared with Gen. Colin Powell to build support for the measure, Eleveld asked why the President has not adopted a similar tact to advocating for DADT repeal.

Gibbs refused to ask the question, instead reiterating the fact that Obama’s leadership has helped move the issue “to this point”:

ELEVELD: It’s looking like the votes can be there, but Senator Reid is sort of giving mixed signals about whether or not there will be time to do this and sort of how committed he seems to be to making it happen before the end of the year. You’ve said a number of times that this is important to the President. Why not put the President in front of the camera, why not let him use his bully pulpit to lobby for this getting done before Congress goes home? Because for instance with START, he was in front of the cameras with General Powell. [...]

GIBBS: Let’s be clear, we would not be at this point if it wasn’t for the President’s leadership in bringing this issue to the floor. You mentioned, I believe we have the votes….There is time to do this if there are those on the other side of the aisle that wish to get this done and it’s clear that whether it’s Senator Brown or Senator Murkowski or Senator Snowe or others, there is an effort to get this done if we have time to.

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Indeed, the strongest direct advocate for holding a vote before the lame duck session appears to be Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) who today, urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to hold a vote on DADT repeal before START. “I believe instead of going back to the START treaty, we should go to the independent stand-alone repeal of don’t ask don’t tell Saturday night,” Lieberman said. “We can get it done by Monday, maybe Tuesday at the latest, and then go back to the START treaty.”

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent argues that this is the best case scenario for repealing the policy since “[i]f Reid waits until New START is done before holding the vote on DADT, Senators could start going home once the treaty is resolved, dooming DADT repeal.” “By contrast, if the DADT repeal vote is done first, no Senator will leave Washington before START is resolved. So doing DADT repeal first doesn’t imperil START.”

But Reid and the White House seem more interested in passing START and at this point it doesn’t sound like Reid is on board with the Lieberman time frame. Here is how the Senate Majority Leader described the time frame in a press release issued yesterday: “We are very quickly running out of days in this Congress. The time for week-long negotiations on amendments and requests for days of debate is over. Republican Senators who favor repealing this discriminatory policy need to join with us now to stand against those who are trying to run out the clock on this Congress”

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs refused to directly condemn the Marine Commandant’s suggestion that repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would have the effect of killing Marines in the line of duty, saying simply that the Commandant’s views are “well known.” Earlier today, Gen. James Amos — who has publicly opposed lifting the ban — said in the context of repealing the policy, “I don’t want to lose any Marines to distraction. I don’t want to have any Marines that I’m visiting at Bethesda (hospital) with no legs.”

Pressed by the Advocate’s Kerry Eleveld on whether Obama was worried about having his own appointee “constantly raising opposition to his own stated belief the the policy needed to be changed,” Gibbs simply reiterated the administration’s talking point on the issue:

GIBBS: I think the President’s views and the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff’s views and the Secretary of Defense’s views are fairly well known. I think the President as Commander in Chief has a strong viewpoint. I think backed up by the survey conducted by the Pentagon as to the attitude of the men and women in our military that this can be done in a way that strengthens our national security, preserves the best fighting force in the world, and most importantly, does away with a policy that he doesn’t think is just.

ELEVELD: I mean, the Commandant is continually challenging the assumptions of the Commander in Chief…

GIBBS: No, I mean, look, I think their views are very well known, just as the Commander in Chief’s views are very well known. I think if you look at the Commander in Chief, the head of the Pentagon, and the head of the Joint Chiefs, you’ll find unanimity in the belief that it’s time to do away with this policy and that’s exactly what the President is working to do.

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Conversely, repeal advocates have strongly condemned Amos’ statement. “General Amos needs to fall in line and salute or resign now,” Aubrey Sarvis, Army veteran and executive director for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network said in a statement. “He implied that repeal will lead to Marines losing their legs in combat. Those fear tactics are not in the interest of any service member.” Alexander Nicholson of Servicemebers United also noted that Amos’ comment “reflects very poorly on DOD and on the administration.”

This afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs refused to say that President Obama would call on the Senate to stay in session until it brought up the stand-alone measure to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. In a series of passive replies to the Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson and the Advocate’s Kerry Eleveld, Gibbs didn’t directly urge the Senate to consider the measure, but said, “our hope is that the Senate will take this up again and we’ll see this done by the time the year ends.” “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and DREAM, along with government funding, are all in a basket of issues that are likely to come after” START, he argued earlier in the press briefing.

Asked by Eleveld why Obama has pledged to stay in DC until the Senate passed START but not DADT, Gibbs replied that the President would wait for the Senate to adjourn before leaving. Gibbs also refused to say if the administration was considering alternatives to legislative repeal:

GIBBS: There is a whole host of important things, beyond the tax deal and START, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell being one of them, that the President believes can be dealt with before Congress leaves town.

ELEVELD: If the legislative effort fails, are there other options on the table? I mean it’s a distinct possibility now.

GIBBS: I should say this, I think it’s a distinct possibility that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will be repealed by the end of this year and that’s where our effort is focused.

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While the administration isn’t publicly discussing other ways to end the ban, repeal advocates are. This morning, three former service members discharged under the policy filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California asking the court to “reinstate them on the basis of the ‘Witt standard,’ a legal threshold established by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in 2008.”

On Sunday, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) called on Obama to use his bully pulpit “and urge the Senate to stay in, right up to New Years.” “That’s the problem that I don’t see that kind of a willingness to fight that hard, where he will take that kind of a position and that’s what’s necessary,” Levin said. “The Senate and the House, these are tests of wills.”

As President Obama met with the Service Chiefs to discuss the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and tomorrow’s release of the Pentagon’s 10-month report into the matter, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs predicted the administration didn’t “anticipate that the release of the report will do anything but strengthen” the legislative case for repeal, but stopped short of saying that Obama would use the report to lobby undecided Senators on the issue.

Gibbs, who also said that the President had seen parts of the DADT report, made the comments in reply to questions from the Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson:

GIBBS: I believe the President has seen part of [the report]…I think the President strongly believed that this was an issue that can and should be solved legislatively, encourage the Senate to act legislatively on the Defense Authorization bill and particularly on changing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. That’s our position now and I don’t believe the release of the report will do anything but strengthen that case.

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While it’s unclear if the report — which has found that the majority of troops don’t oppose repealing the ban — will convince the Chiefs and undecided lawmakers to support repeal, it’s at least reassuring to note that three of the four Chiefs and undecided Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) have praised the review. Navy chief Adm. Gary Roughead and Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz have publicly endorsed the comprehensive nature of the review and Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos — who has expressed concerns about the “risk” of repeal — also predicted that the Pentagon’s review of the policy would inform the military about how best to implement a repeal and allow the Marines Corp to change the policy “smartly.” Webb said, “I can’t remember a study on this type of issue that has been done with this sort of care. Not even having seen it or knowing the results, but I know the preparation that went into it. So it’s going to be a very important study for us to look at and examine.”

The Advocate’s Kerry Eleveld attended a White House press gaggle this afternoon where Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told her that while passing the National Defense Authorization Act — which contains the amendment to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — is a priority for the administration, President Obama has not yet reached out to swing Senators on the issue:

ELEVELD: Sen. Susan Collins joined Sen. Lieberman in calling for early release of the Pentagon’s report on repeal. Has the president made any phone calls to Sen. Collins or other swayable senators – does he plan to make any phone calls to those folks?

GIBBS: I don’t know that the president has – I don’t believe that the president has talked to Sen. Collins or Sen. Lieberman on this issue. To my knowledge, the study has not come over here. Obviously, it’s being finished up by the Pentagon. [...]

ELEVELD: Just today, you’ve that the START treaty is something you think will get done [during the lame duck], and you’ve said the [middle class] tax cuts are something that you have to get done. What category would you put the Defense authorization bill in?

GIBBS: I would put it in the same category. As I’ve said before, it’s a priority for the president to get it done before the end of the year.

I should note that this may contradict what a White House official told the Huffington Post’s Amanda Terkel last week. That individual said that the administration has “reached out to Democratic and Republican lawmakers on the issue, making calls as recently as Monday night.” “The Administration has not wavered from its stance that the DADT repeal should be passed during this Congress,” the official stated.

Gates’ comments focus on the President ( rather than the administration as a whole) but they do square fairly well with what I’ve been hearing from staff members for the swing senators — Snowe, Collins, Voinovich, Webb, Manchin: the administration isn’t lobbying on the issue and hasn’t called. And, it’s the same thing that the Log Cabin Republicans have complained about to Terkel and Eleveld. On Monday, an aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) also told repeal activists that he “cannot guarantee” the bill coming to a vote “before Thanksgiving,” and that “the White House has not been engaged.”

Meanwhile, one Senate Democratic aide told the Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson that “repeal — currently pending before the U.S. Senate as part of the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization bill — is ‘barely hanging on with life support.’”

“The only way to resuscitate this effort and get a ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ vote is for President Obama and [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates to start pushing directly, something we on the Hill had expected the president and Gates to do long ago,” the aide said.

The American people are of course still on board. A new CNN poll finds that support for repealing the measure has increased from 67% in September to 72%. Only 23% of Americans oppose repeal.