President Obama to ABC News: 'Same-sex marriage should be legal'

The video does not yet appear to be live (update: see top of post) at this link on the ABC News site, but the text on the page read: "Obama: 'Same-Sex Marriage Should be Legal'" with a blurb reading "President says his position on marriage has evolved." George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer are apparently going to interrupt regular ABC programming at 3PM for the announcement.

11:58 AM PT: And the special report is starting now. "A historic social and political moment," says Diane Sawyer.

12:01 PM PT: ABC's Robin Roberts plays a clip of President Obama answering her question on his position on same-sex marriage: "I have to tell you, as I said, I've been going through an evolution on this issue ... I have hesitated on gay marriage, in part because I thought civil unions would be sufficient, and I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people the word marriage was something that invokes a lot of feelings very powerful traditions, religious beliefs, and so forth ... But as I've talked with friends, and families, and neighbors ... I've just concluded that, for me personally, that it's important for me to affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married."

12:06 PM PT: ABC played about two minutes of the president talking about same-sex marriage. They'll play the rest of the interview tonight on World News Tonight and tomorrow on Good Morning America.

12:07 PM PT (Barbara Morrill): Send an email to President Obama thanking him for endorsing marriage equality.

12:07 PM PT: Here's ABC's report.

12:11 PM PT: Video of President Obama's statement now at top of post.

12:16 PM PT (David Nir): Relying on the most recent weekly Daily Kos/SEIU poll, our pollster, Tom Jensen, makes a very good point:

On national poll last weekend we found most voters opposed to legal recognition for gay couples ALREADY think Obama supports gay marriage

' @ppppolls via web Indeed, 41% of voters thought the president already supported gay marriage'we asked this question over the weekend, before today's historic interview. And among that group, 56% were themselves opposed to any legal recognition for same-sex couples. So if the people most opposed to gay marriage think you support gay marriage... well, you might as well actually support gay marriage, right? I don't know if this calculus played a role in Obama's thinking, but it at least suggests that the electoral downside to his change of views on the issue may be a lot smaller than you'd expect.

12:22 PM PT: I just fixed the video, which had been cutting off before the end of President Obama's remarks.

12:26 PM PT: Mitt Romney's prebuttal:

At an event at an oil-and-gas production company here Wednesday morning, Mitt Romney refused to answer questions on same-sex marriage, a topic about which President Obama is expected to speak this afternoon, in an interview with Robin Roberts of ABC.

'Not on the rope line,' Mr. Romney said, when pressed by reporters after an energy event to comment on the president and gay marriage.

His silence speaks volumes, not just on his political cowardice, but also on the fact this isn't 2004. 12:27 PM PT: A great day in our fight for civil rights-President Obama adds his support for marriage #equality. #BeautifulDay
— @NancyPelosi via web 12:28 PM PT: "Same-sex couples should be able to get married."''President Obama
— @BarackObama via web 12:29 PM PT: In case you forgot, Mitt Romney will address the conservative Christian Liberty University commencement on Saturday.
— @kasie via TweetDeck