NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court panel forced a Justice Department lawyer into an awkward position Thursday, making him explain the government's decision to abandon defending the Defense of Marriage Act as judges decide the fate of a law destined for the U.S. Supreme Court.

"In my day, when you won, you didn't appeal," a smiling Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals told Acting Assistant Attorney General Stuart Delery after Delery rose from his seat near lawyers defending the law even as he seemed to speak out against it.

Later, Judge Chester Straub demanded to know why the government quit defending the constitutionality of a 1996 law that defines marriage as involving a man and a woman after having spoken in favor of it for nearly 15 years.