Andrew Sullivan on the Defense of Marriage Act

Andrew Sullivan's comments on why it's time to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA):

On what grounds does the federal government not simply recognize the marriage laws of the various states? By what reasoning does the federal government recognize all the civil marriages legal in, say, Alabama, but not all of the civil marriages legal in Massachusetts? We know the real reason: a view that homosexuals need to be discriminated against in the law in order to "protect" society from their wicked attempts to live with and care for one another. But the reason on federalist grounds is non-existent....

As long as a civil marriage is valid in a state, it should be recognized by the feds. Why would a real conservative object to that?

More from Sullivan here.