Why did the U.S. Congress pass the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996?

The U.S. Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996 with overwhelming support, primarily driven by the anticipation that the state of Hawaii would soon legalize same-sex marriage.1

Lawmakers feared that if Hawaii legalized such unions, other states would be constitutionally compelled to recognize same-sex marriages performed there. To prevent this, DOMA was enacted to explicitly allow states to refuse recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions. Additionally, the act defined marriage for all federal purposes as a legal union exclusively between one man and one woman, thereby denying same-sex couples over 1,000 federal protections and benefits afforded to opposite-sex couples.12

Proponents of the legislation argued that opposite-sex marriage was the only appropriate context for procreation and family formation, claiming that recognizing same-sex unions would destabilize traditional marriage. The law remained in effect until its definition of marriage was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 and it was formally repealed in 2022.13