The DOMA was exactly what I -- and many other conservatives -- correctly said it was when it was first passed into law: blatant, calculated political pandering at its worst. The Republicans passed the bill in both houses of Congress. Bill Clinton signed it into law in September 1996 for the sole purpose of appealing to moderate voters in his re-election bid less than two months later.
That same jack@ss Clinton said recently that it was a "bad law" -- even though he signed it into law. He has no problem maintaining a position of such two-faced hypocrisy because he was as unprincipled (and unserious) a man as you'll ever meet even in Washington.
IMHO you are getting hung up on proving and support your initially concluded point and as such you miss the forest for the trees.. It could be that Clinton was pandering. I would agree that MOST politicians are simply leaves blowing in the wind that will take the path of least resistance.
HOWEVER, while dismissing the spineless and unprincipled politicos I think you as well errantly dismiss the motivations of PEOPLE they were attempting to pander to.
As an example look at the Immigration Reform debate. The politicians who pander by seeking to build a border fence or hire more Border Patrol agents do so BECAUSE the laws already in place are not being enforced.
I would suggest that DOMA at its roots was a response to the clear and present danger of leftists IMPOSING a new definition of marriage around the country. A definition that as I mentioned before is in God's domain alone.
The country faces this question more and more now with Obama in office. WHAT do you do to oppose those that not only ignore the laws but as well subvert them. Write new laws? LOL!!!
Rest assured this and other issues are far from settled.