Following the same reasoning as state courts in California, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa, a federal district court has ruled that a federal law against same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro upheld two separate challenges to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that established a federal definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

He ruled that the law unconstitutionally denied a multitude of benefits, from Social Security to the right to file a joint tax return, to same-sex couples.

Court decisions aren’t always sufficient to end discrimination. In California, for instance, the state Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage was swept away when voters passed Proposition 8, amending the state constitution.

And this federal ruling, by itself, does nothing to make the right of marriage more widely available. Judge Tauro notes that states retain the authority to define marriage, and that the Defense of Marriage Act was an unprecedented effort by Congress to mandate a federal definition of marriage.

Thursday’s decision dismissed some of the legislative thinking that went into the 1996 law. Tauro wrote: “In the floor debate, members of Congress repeatedly voiced their disapproval of homosexuality, calling it ”˜immoral,’ ”˜depraved,’ ”˜unnatural,’ ”˜based on perversion’ and ”˜an attack upon God’s principals.’”

Such words are strong evidence that the law was conceived to punish a politically unpopular group. And even though it Congress was unable to establish an outright ban on same-sex marriage, there are at least 1,138 federal laws affected by the Defense of Marriage Act.

In finding the law unconstitutional, Judge Tauro said there is no evidence it serves the objective originally set by Congress ”“ to protect marriage and the family. Nor does it advance a less ambitious objective argued by the Obama administration: Establishing a sense of continuity as state laws on marriage evolve.

This failure to establish a rationale for the Defense of Marriage Act left the government with no legitimate reason for denying same-sex couples the benefits that marriage provides. Tauro wrote: “Congress undertook this classification for the one purpose that lies entirely outside of legislative bounds, to disadvantage a group of which it disapproves. And such a classification the Constitution clearly will not permit.”

His words will not be the last in this case, which appears headed, along with California’s Proposition 8 appeal, to the U.S. Supreme Court. But the ruling adds more strong reasoning to the argument on behalf of marriage equality.