CHICAGO (AP) – The White House hopes it’s a new day for gay rights in the African nation of Malawi and around the world.

Presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs says the White House was pleased to learn that Malawi’s president on Saturday pardoned a same-sex couple sentenced to 14 years in prison because of their sexual orientation.

Gibbs says in a statement that the men aren’t criminals, and that their struggle isn’t unique. The statement urges an end to what it calls “the persecution and criminalization” of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Malawi has faced international condemnation for the conviction and harsh sentencing. Malawi’s president says he granted the pardon based on “humanitarian grounds only,” but homosexuality remains illegal.

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) – A federal appeals judge has blocked an order that Maine officials be given information about donors who helped finance a successful campaign to repeal Maine’s same-sex marriage law.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals order remains in effect until a further order of the court.

A magistrate judge recommended that the National Organization for Marriage turn over information about donors and fundraising to the Maine attorney general’s office. NOM was a major donor to last fall’s referendum campaign to repeal Maine’s law legalizing same-sex marriage.

Just before the law was repealed by voters, the state ethics commission decided to investigate whether the National Organization for Marriage should have been required to submit names of its donors. NOM maintained that release of names would violate donors’ First Amendment rights.

BOSTON (AP) – The Massachusetts attorney general asked a judge Wednesday to strike down a federal same-sex marriage ban, arguing it interferes with the right of states to define marriage and have those marriages acknowledged by the federal government.

The challenge to the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act by Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office was heard in federal court in Boston.

Assistant Attorney General Maura Healey argued states have historically had the right to define marriage.

She said the 1996 law could result in the denial of federal benefits to married couples in Massachusetts, where same-sex unions have been legal since 2004.

A lawyer from the U.S. Justice Department, Christopher Hall, argued the federal government has the right to set eligibility requirements for federal — including requiring that those benefits only go to couples in marriages between a man and a woman.

Hall also pointed to instances where the federal government has regulated the definition of marriage in certain immigration cases.

It is the second time this month that a challenge to the federal law, also known as DOMA, has been heard in a federal court.

In May, gay rights groups launched their own challenge before the same judge, arguing the law unconstitutionally denies same-sex couples federal benefits available to other married couples.

An estimated 15,000 same-sex couples have been married in Massachusetts, which is one of a just a few states to legalize same-sex marriage.

U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro hasn’t indicated when he would rule on the challenges.

BOSTON (AP) – The Massachusetts attorney general has asked a judge to strike down a federal same-sex marriage ban, arguing it interferes with the right of states to define marriage and have those marriages acknowledged by the federal government.

The challenge to the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act by Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office was heard in federal court in Boston.

Assistant Attorney General Maura Healey argued states have historically had the right to define marriage.

She said the 1996 law could result in the denial of Medicaid and other benefits to married couples in Massachusetts, where same-sex unions have been legal since 2004.

A lawyer from the U.S. Justice Department, Christopher Hall, argued the federal government has the right to set eligibility requirements for federal benefits — including requiring that those benefits only go to couples in marriages between a man and a woman.

Hall also pointed to instances where the federal government has regulated the definition of marriage in certain immigration cases.

It is the second time this month that a challenge to the federal law, also known as DOMA, has been heard in a federal court.

Earlier this month, gay rights groups launched a challenge before the same judge, arguing the law unconstitutionally denies same-sex couples federal benefits available to other married couples.

An estimated 15,000 same-sex couples have been married in Massachusetts.

Healey argued the federal law not only intrudes on an area of core state sovereignty, but “forces Massachusetts to discriminate against its own citizens.”

“Never before has the federal government told a married couple that they are married under state law but not under federal law,” Healey said, adding that states “have always had exclusive control over defining and regulating marriage.”

Healey cited the case of a military veteran who has asked that he and his same-sex spouse be buried in a veterans’ cemetery when they die, a privilege offered other married veterans. She said the state has decided to authorize the burial, even though it risks losing federal money for doing so.

“Why? Because it’s the right thing to do,” she said. “We are now subject to forfeiture and loss of funds.”

Hall argued the law doesn’t intrude on states’ sovereignty, because it doesn’t bar them from legalizing same-sex marriages.

Hall also argued that by approving the 1996 marriage law, Congress didn’t preclude revisiting the potentially divisive issue in the future when there might be more of a national consensus.

“Congress decided to freeze the status quo and let the democratic process work itself out at the state level,” he said.

Hall defended the federal government’s right to set eligibility requirements for federal funds — noting that federal highway funds must be spent on highways.

Under questioning from U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro, however, Hall acknowledged the law sets a different marriage standard for state and federal governments.

Tauro also pressed Hall on the case of the veteran, asking if the federal government had an interest in “perpetuating heterosexuality in the graveyard.”

When Hall tried to argue that the state faced no immediate harm by authorizing the burial since the Obama administration opposes the law and is pushing for its repeal, Tauro pressed him on what constituted an immediate threat.

“Do you have to wait until the dirt from the shovel is in the grave?” Tauro said.

The judge also took issue with status quo argument, saying that preserving it in 1996 could have meant preserving the right of states to define marriage and have those marriages recognized by other states and the federal government.

Tauro hasn’t indicated when he would rule on the challenges.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Defense Secretary Robert Gates is telling U.S. troops not to be distracted by the political debate over gays serving openly in the military.

In a special videotaped message to the armed forces, Gates says the military’s review of how to implement a change in the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy will go forward. He says nothing will change while the review continues, and that it is more important for men and women in uniform to help with the study to get the policy right.

Officials say Gates wanted to speak directly to troops because of action on the issue in Congress. The Senate Armed Services Committee and the full House approved measures Thursday to repeal the 1993 law that allows gay people to serve only if they hide their sexual orientation.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan received a boost from potential GOP supporters – two Republican senators who will vote on her confirmation – who said her lack of experience as a judge is no obstacle to elevating her.

Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and George S. LeMieux of Florida made their comments a day after one of the court’s conservative icons, Justice Antonin Scalia, undercut Republican criticism of Kagan’s lack of a judicial background.

Scalia’s remark, made during a lecture at the federal courthouse in Washington, “helps her. Definitely, it helps her,” said Graham, a member of the Judiciary Committee that will hold confirmation hearings on Kagan set to begin June 28. “I think that argument is not going to go very far.”

LeMieux, who had a lengthy meeting with Kagan in the Capitol Thursday, also said judicial inexperience was not a concern.

“I don’t find that in any way a prohibition to her service,” LeMieux said. The first-term Floridian called Kagan intelligent, articulate and “refreshingly forthcoming” on a variety of questions he posed, on subjects including free speech, guns, gay and lesbian rights and abortion.

Both Graham and LeMieux said it was too early to tell whether they would vote to confirm Kagan, who drew seven Republican votes last year when she was confirmed as solicitor general.

Kagan, President Barack Obama’s choice to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, has now met with half the Senate as she crisscrosses Capitol Hill introducing herself in advance of the hearings.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said Kagan would bring “a greater degree of dialogue to a divided court.”

“While it was clear that she would not prejudge any case, we did touch on privacy issues that are most important to me and other major issues that the Supreme Court may wrestle with in the coming years,” Gillibrand said after meeting with Kagan.

Republicans have expressed reservations about the former Harvard Law School dean’s lack of courtroom experience, which has made it difficult to discern Kagan’s legal views. She has stepped aside from her post as the government’s top lawyer in order to focus on the nomination.

But one of the GOP’s favorite justices said Kagan’s resume was a plus.

“I am happy to see that this latest nominee is not a federal judge – and not a judge at all,” Scalia said Wednesday, in remarks first reported by ABC News.

Scalia last week volunteered that he considers Kagan a friend.

Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of U.S. District Court in Washington said Scalia was advocating for judges with varying backgrounds at all levels of the judiciary, “including the Supreme Court.”

“He was decrying the notion that we ought to have a judiciary that is a full-time career, starting as a low-level judge and working your way up,” said Lamberth, who introduced Scalia.

Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the High Court’s first woman, echoed Scalia’s sentiment.

“I think it’s fine. Just fine,” O’Connor told ABC. She said Kagan seems “very well qualified academically.”