‘A BEACON OF HOPE’
Hil eulogizes Windsor as hero in gay marriage fight
HILLARY CLINTON delivered a stirring eulogy at the funeral of marriage equality hero Edith Windsor — remembering her as a fearless fighter who never wavered in her historic legal crusade.
“That she experienced loss, grief and injustice made her only more generous, more open-hearted and more fearless in her fight,” Clinton said to the hundreds of mourners packed into Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan on Friday.
“She refused to give up on the promise of America. There wasn’t a cynical, defeatist bone in her body.” Windsor died Tuesday in Manhattan at the age of 88.
A trailblazing IBM systems manager and longtime Greenwich Village resident, Windsor (photo) is credited with paving the way for gay marriage. “She inspired those of us who met her and countless people she never knew,” Clinton said.
“Thank you, Edie,” she added. “Thank you for being a beacon of hope, for proving that love is more powerful than hate.”
Windsor’s unlikely journey from diminutive computer programmer to towering civil rights pioneer took a pivotal turn in 2009 with the death of her partner of 40 years, Thea Spyer. Windsor inherited Spyer’s estate but was left with a $363,000 tax bill because the federal Defense of Marriage Act barred benefits to gay couples.
Windsor took her legal fight to the Supreme Court — resulting in a victory that toppled DOMA and set the stage for the 2015 ruling that made marriage equality the law of the land.
By the time she got married a second time, to banker Judith Kasen in 2016, Windsor was known as the mother of the marriage equality movement.
“Until the last day, Edie made sure we knew that we were never to forget that until all things are equal for everyone, the battle is not done,” Kasen-Windsor told the mourners. A QUEENS man was sentenced to a year on Rikers Island for hitting a gay man with a stick and calling one a homophobic slur.
As a gay couple was innocently walking down the street near Lafayette Ave. and Fulton St. in Brooklyn on Feb. 28, Loudal Baez called one of the men a “f----” and hit the other in the hip with a stick.
Baez pleaded guilty to third-degree assault earlier this month in front of Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun earlier this month.