LGBT rights advocate Edith Windsor died
Tuesday in Manhattan. She was 88.
According to The
New York Times, Windsor's wife, Judith Kasen-Windsor,
confirmed the death. She did not say how her wife died.
Windsor's victory at the Supreme Court
paved the way for nationwide same-sex marriage.
Windsor met her first wife, Thea Spyer,
in the 1960s. Spyer died in 2009, two years after the women married
in Canada. Windsor challenged the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA),
which prohibited the federal government from recognizing the couple's
marriage, after she received a $363,000 estate tax bill following
Spyer's death.
The 2013 Supreme Court ruling that
struck down a key provision of DOMA is also credited with providing
the legal framework for 2015's landmark ruling in Obergefell,
which found that gay couples
have a constitutional right to marry.
On the
day the high court handed down its DOMA ruling, former President
Barack Obama appeared at a press conference. The president hailed
“the countless small acts of courage of millions of people across
decades who stood up” for LGBT rights. “Sometimes, there are
days like this when that slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice
that arrives like a thunderbolt,” he added.
Windsor
remarried last year. According to the Times,
a “romance blossomed” between the women after Kasen-Windsor took
Windsor out on a date, which took place at a Hanukkah party hosted by
Roberta Kaplan, Windsor's lawyer in the landmark case.
Kasen-Windsor,
a banking executive, is Windsor's only survivor.
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