It is one thing to say churches that forbid homosexuality should not perform homosexual marriages and quite another to say the federal government should not ALLOW them. For my money, any constitutionally protected right places the burden of proof on the federal government to show the nations highest law is not violated by inferior ones (for conservatives reading along: Yes, that goes for the Second Amendment, too; licensing and registering guns just like cars is fine, but banning any or all is not.) Whether marriage is a right or privilege is immaterial to the Equal Protection Clauses requirement state and federal law treat all Americans equally, and the DoMA segregated marriage as surely as miscegenation laws did.

The timing, however, is perfectly awful; much as with the fight Obama picked with the Catholic Church over contraception, it will not bring anyone to the polls to thank him, and will bring many to the polls to rebuke him. Pity they could not have deliberated another three weeks or so.