President Barack Obama said Wednesday he supports same-sex marriage, raising the political stakes on an issue over which Americans are evenly split.

The announcement was the first by a sitting president and put Obama squarely at odds with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

On Wednesday during appearances in Colorado and Oklahoma Romney said “I believe marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman.”

Obama said in an interview with ABC News, “At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me, personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

But according to ABC, Obama hedged on the subject. The president stressed that this is a personal position, and that he still supports the concept of states deciding the issue on their own.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, the response from Christian church leaders ranged from “giddy” to “deeply saddening” when asked about President Obama’s new support of gay marriage.

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