Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday challenged Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton’s characterization of why her husband, former President Bill Clinton, signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which denied federal recognition of gay marriages.

Hillary Clinton said on Friday she supported the 1996 legislation as a defensive measure to prevent an even stricter amendment to the Constitution doing the same thing. And Sanders took issue with that, saying it was a “homophobic” and politically expedient law.

“I think the evidence is very, very clear that that legislation was anti-gay legislation,” he said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It was playing off the fears of a lot of Americans.”

In a Friday appearance on “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC, Hillary Clinton said there was enough momentum in 1996 to amend the Constitution. DOMA, she said, was “a line that was drawn to prevent going further.”

Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont who is running for president as a Democrat, voted against the bill when he was a member of the House — which he said was “not an easy vote” because of the political atmosphere at the time.

“I thought then — and I think now — that people have the right to love those folks that they want to love and get married because of their sexual orientation,” Sanders said.

Since then, though, he said, “We have become a far less discriminatory society,” and “we should be very, very proud … We’ve come a long way.”