Fourteen months ago, President Obama was a bigot. Now he is simply wrong. That’s what you have to believe to agree with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s majority opinion for the Supreme Court on the Defense of Marriage Act.

Kennedy writes that the only reason Congress had for passing DOMA – which defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman for the purposes of federal law – was to “disparage,” “injure,” “degrade,” “demean” and “humiliate” gay and lesbian Americans.

So in 2008 when the American people elected a president opposed to redefining marriage, they elected a bigot. Got it?

When President Obama “evolved” on the issue just over a year ago, he insisted that the debate about marriage was legitimate one. He said there are people of goodwill on both sides.

Supporters of marriage as we’ve always understood it (a male-female union) “are not coming at it from a mean-spirited perspective,” Obama explained. “They’re coming at it because they care about families.” And “a bunch of ’em are friends of mine,” he added. “… you know, people who I deeply respect.”

But by Kennedy’s reasoning, Obama is wrong to express such goodwill toward those who disagree with him. In enacting DOMA, 342 members of the House, 85 members of the Senate and President Bill Clinton all must have been motivated by malice – or, to use the term Kennedy favors, “animus.”