Such critics of Obama are wrong. They are wrong about what the administration has done and said, wrong on the politics of gay marriage, and -- most important -- they are wrong on the law.

To start with, here's what Obama actually said. He talked about his Justice Department's refusal to defend DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, against legal challenges, taking the position that it is unconstitutional. His administration was "no longer defending the Defense Against Marriage Act, which tried to federalize what is historically been state law," Obama said in announcing his support for same-sex marriage on ABC News last week.

He went on to explain that he feared (accurately, in my view) that by taking a stand in favor of marriage equality he could actually set the cause back: "I have to tell you that part of my hesitation on this has also been I didn't want to nationalize the issue. There's a tendency when I weigh in to think suddenly it becomes political and it becomes polarized."

And he accurately described the reality of American legal approaches toward same-sex couples -- and reaffirmed that that's precisely how marriage law works in this country:

And what you're seeing is, I think, states working through this issue -- in fits and starts, all across the country. Different communities are arriving at different conclusions, at different times. And I think that's a healthy process and a healthy debate. And I continue to believe that this is an issue that is gonna be worked out at the local level, because historically, this has not been a federal issue, what's recognized as a marriage.

Does that mean he's supporting "states' rights"? No, it does not. He's taking a position that will help my Massachusetts marriage actually end up being recognized in every state in the country sooner rather than later.

Let me explain.

States have always written their own marriage laws -- and if they didn't, if we had national marriage laws, I would not be married right now, as I have explained in great detail over at The American Prospect. I'm married in my state of Massachusetts only because the states are the laboratory of marital change.

Here's the technical caveat: the question of interstate recognition of another state's marriage is a federal question, mostly. And there, Obama is in favor of knocking down the federal DOMA, which as he noted was a federal incursion into state territory. And that's exactly what we need now: for the federal government to repeal its unprecedented incursion into marriage law -- DOMA, which defines marriage for federal purposes as between one man and one woman -- and to recognize all marriages that have already been made by the states.

What would de-federalizing marriage law do? It will make it possible for same-sex marrieds to be treated not just as married in their home states, but also in the United States. That's what would happen if DOMA is either repealed by Congress -- and Obama openly supports the Respect for Marriage Act, which would do just that -- or is knocked down by the federal courts, as a number of lawsuits are seeking -- and, again, which the Obama Justice Department also actively supports. Let us be 100 percent clear on this point: The administration is refusing to defend DOMA in court, and is filing briefs supporting the same-sex couples' stands. When marriage law is de-federalized, returned to the states, then mixed-nationality couples will be free to marry in the six (and expanding) states that now marry same-sex couples -- and the federal government will have to recognize that marriage for the purpose of the foreign-born partner's immigration status.