While his stated position was against same-sex marriage, Clinton criticized DOMA as "unnecessary and divisive", and his press-secretary called it "gay baiting, plain and simple". However, after Congress had passed the bill with enough votes to override a presidential veto, Clinton signed DOMA. Years later, he said that he did so reluctantly in view of the veto-proof majority, both to avoid associating himself politically with the then-unpopular cause of same-sex marriage and to defuse momentum for a proposed Federal Amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning same-sex marriage. Clinton, who was traveling when Congress acted, signed it into law promptly upon returning to Washington, D.C., on September 21, 1996; no signing ceremony was held for DOMA and no photographs were taken of him signing it into law. The White House released a statement in which Clinton said "that the enactment of this legislation should not, despite the fierce and at times divisive rhetoric surrounding it, be understood to provide an excuse for discrimination, violence or intimidation against any person on the basis of sexual orientation". Even so, later the same year Clinton ran ads on Christian radio stations nationwide promoting how he'd signed DOMA into force. The ads were pulled after massive blowback from LGBT groups.