Windsor, the wind that swept US top court, dies

Gay rights pioneer’s case struck down parts of anti-gay-marriage law, legalised same-sex unions

New York, Sept. 13: Edith Windsor, a gay rights pioneer whose landmark Supreme Court case struck down parts of a federal anti-gay-marriage law and paved a path toward legalising same-sex nuptials nationwide, died on Tuesday. She was 88.

Ms Windsor died in New York, said her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan. The cause of death wasn’t given, but Ms Windsor had struggled with heart issues for years.

Former President Barack Obama called her one of the “quiet heroes” whose persistence had furthered the cause of equality. “Few were as small in stature as Edie Windsor — and few made as big a difference to America,” the Democrat said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that he had spoken to her a few days earlier.

Ms Windsor already was 81 when she brought a lawsuit that proved to be a turning point for gay rights.

The impetus was the 2009 death of her first spouse, Thea Spyer. The women had married legally in Canada in 2007 after spending more than 40 years together.

Ms Windsor said the federal defence of Marriage Act’s definition of marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman prevented her from getting a marital deduction on Spyer’s estate. That meant Ms Windsor faced a $360,000 tax bill that heterosexual couples would not have.

“It’s a very important case. It’s bigger than marriage, and I think marriage is major. I think if we win, the effect will be the beginning of the end of stigma,” she said, after the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

Win she did, The justices ruled 5-4 in June 2013 that the provision in the law was unconstitutional, and that legally married samesex couples are entitled to the same federal benefits that heterosexual couples receive.

The opinion marked a key moment of encouragement for gay marriage supporters then confronting a nationwide patchwork of laws that outlawed such unions in roughly three dozen states.

It also affronted conservatives who hewed to defining marriage as between a man and a woman.