Edith Windsor

Edith “Edie” Schlain Windsor was a plaintiff in the Supreme Court case,, which challenged DOMA.

Background
In 2007, Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer, residents of New York, married in Toronto, Ontario, after 40 years of romantic partnership. Canada's first openly gay judge, Justice Harvey Brownstone officiated. Windsor had first suggested engagement in 1965. Spyer died in 2009, at which time New York legally recognized same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions. After Spyer's death, Windsor was required to pay more than $363,000 in federal estate taxes on her inheritance of her wife's estate. If federal law accorded their marriage the same status as different-sex marriages recognized by their state, she would have paid no taxes.

Windsor approached several gay rights organizations, all of whom turned her down. She was then referred to Roberta Kaplan, a partner at the major international law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, who had unsuccessfully argued the case challenging the inability of same-sex couples to marry in New York before the New York Court of Appeals in 2006. "When I heard her story, it took me about five seconds, maybe less," said Kaplan, who was joined in Windsor's case by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

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