Edie Windsor dead: LGBT rights activist and lead plaintiff in US vs Windsor, dies aged 88

‘One simply cannot write the history of the gay rights movement without reserving immense credit and gratitude for Edie Windsor’

Sally Hayden
Wednesday 13 September 2017 19:55 BST
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The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union credited Windsor as ‘one of this country’s great civil pioneers’
The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union credited Windsor as ‘one of this country’s great civil pioneers’

Edie Windsor, the American gay rights activist whose fight for same-sex marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling, has died aged 88.

Her wife Judith Kasen-Windsor confirmed her death to The New York Times.

Windsor’s fight for recognition of same-sex married couples began after the death of her first wife, Thea Spyer, who she had been engaged to for more than forty years before they finally married in Canada in 2007.

Ordered to pay $363,000 (£274,000) in federal estate tax, she argued that defining marriage as something between a man and a woman was unconstitutional, as it stopped her from getting a tax deduction given to married couples.

The seminal 2013 Supreme Court case, United States v Windsor, was successful and for the first time married couples of the same sex were granted federal recognition.

The case is credited with paving the way for the 2015 Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v Hodges, which gave same-sex couples the right to marry across the US.

“The world lost a tiny but tough-as-nails fighter for freedom, justice and equality,” Mrs Kasen-Windsor told reporters. “Edie was the light of my life. She will always be the light for the LGBTQ community, which she loved so much and which loved her right back.”

In a statement, Barack Obama said he last spoke to Windsor a few days ago and told her what a difference she had made in the US.

“Because people like Edie stood up, my administration stopped defending the so-called Defence of Marriage Act in court,” he said. “The day that the Supreme Court issued its 2013 ruling in United States v Windsor was a great day for Edie, and a great day for America – a victory for human decency, equality, freedom, and justice.”

Other politicians, activists and and celebrities also paid tribute to the feted New York-resident.

“The arc of the moral universe bends toward justice. But sometimes it needs a good kick in the ass from people like Edie Windsor,” tweeted New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Windsor backed Mr de Blasio after the 2016 election, saying, “We need him in office while Donald Trump is our president.”

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, credited Windsor as “one of this country’s great civil pioneers”.

“One simply cannot write the history of the gay rights movement without reserving immense credit and gratitude for Edie Windsor,” Mr Romero said.

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