Obama's past statements on same-sex marriage

The following is a list of President Obama's "evolving" statements on same-sex marriage.

"I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages." -- Obama's answer in a questionnaire during his 1996 run for Illinois state Senate

"Undecided" -- his answer in another questionnaire on the same-sex marriage question during his re-election race for the same office in 1998

"I am a fierce supporter of domestic-partnership and civil-union laws. I am not a supporter of gay marriage as it has been thrown about primarily just as a strategic issue." -- Obama's response during an interview with the Windy City Times, a gay newspaper, in February 2004

"I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian ... it is also a sacred union." -- Obama's response in April 2008 during a presidential campaign forum

"I have been to this point unwilling to sign on to same-sex marriage primarily because of my understandings of the traditional definitions of marriage. But I also think you're right that attitudes evolve, including mine." -- Obama's statement during an interview with bloggers on Oct. 27, 2010

"It is important for me personally to go ahead and affirm that same-sex couples should be able to get married." -- Obama's statement in an interview May 9, 2012, with ABC News