“In 1996, I was President of the Human Rights Campaign, and there was no real threat of a Federal Marriage Amendment,” Birch wrote after Bill Clinton penned an op-ed of his own claiming that he signed DOMA in order to appease Republicans who sought a constitutional amendment.

When Mike McCarry, Clinton’s press secretary, discussed his former boss’ decision to sign DOMA, he also did not mention fear of an amendment.

“His posture was quite frankly driven by the political realities of an election year in 1996,” McCarry told The New York Times in 2013.

A Federal Marriage Amendment didn’t become a political reality until six years after DOMA was passed. Republicans adopted the amendment as part of the party’s platform in 2004.