The Defense of Marriage Act passed the House with a veto-proof majority of 342 to 67. President Bill Clinton signed it into law just after midnight on September 21, 1996. The statute did two things. Section 2 allowed states to ignore same-sex marriages licensed by other states. Section 3 defined marriage for all federal purposes as “a legal union between one man and one woman.” This denied federal benefits—including Social Security survivor payments, immigration rights, and joint tax filing—to legally married same-sex couples.
Its passage was a preemptive strike. In 1996, no state yet offered same-sex marriage, but a case in Hawaii suggested it might become the first. DOMA was a bipartisan political firewall. Clinton, running for re-election, faced pressure from a Republican Congress and his own advisors. He called the bill “divisive and unnecessary” but signed it, stating it would “head off an attempt to send a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the states.” His political calculus was clear.
The law created a two-tiered system of marriage for seventeen years. A couple could be legally married in Massachusetts or Iowa but be considered strangers by the IRS, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. This contradiction forced couples to file thousands of extra tax forms and created legal chaos in areas like medical emergencies.
DOMA’s legacy is one of catalyzed opposition. It became a concrete symbol of institutional discrimination, mobilizing fundraising and legal strategy for LGBTQ+ rights organizations. Its ultimate defeat in the 2013 Supreme Court case *United States v. Windsor* was built on the very inequities the law meticulously codified. Clinton himself disavowed it in 2013, saying his signature was a response to a political climate that “no longer exists.”