Pioneer Public Same–Sex Advocate Edith Windsor Dies At 88
Current same-sex marriage rights in the United States was not upheld 5 years ago. It took “Edie” as Edith Windsor was popularly known, to set the basis, in the court ruling she obtained, for gay rights to be later adopted by the US Supreme Court in 2015. Spurred by her determination to claim refunds from The Internal Revenue Service for sums she paid in taxes on her inheritance of her deceased partner’s estate.
Windsor was born June 20, 1929. Died at on Tuesday September 12 in New York, aged 88 years. Funeral rites was held at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan on Friday. Hundreds of mourners graced the occasion among whom are Public figures like Hillary Clinton who delivered the eulogy, Thomas Duane, who was the first openly gay member of New York senate, former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, civil rights activists and the gay community.
“Edie” a former Senior Systems Programmer at IBM married her partner, Thea Spyer, an Amsterdam born Clinical Psychologist, on May 22, 2007 in Toronto Canada. Spyer was diagnosed for heart related complications and was told by her doctors that she had only about a year to live in 2007. The couple decided to get married in Canada instead of New York where they lived because the US State was yet to legalize same-sex marriage. Spyer died in February 2009. Windsor became the sole beneficiary of her Estate. Windsor remarried in September 2016, to Judith Kasen at The New York City Hall.
To execute the inheritance of her late wife’s estate she was required to pay $363,053 in federal taxes. She could not seek relief under the federal estate tax exemption code for surviving spouses because she was prohibited by Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which refers only to marriage as a union of between a man and a woman.
She got ruling in her favor in March 2013 from the US Supreme Court after scaling through the US District Court for Southern District of New York and the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The US government was ordered by the court to refund her with interest. This judgement proscribed the Section 3 of DOMA Act and negates the Fifth Amendment which relates to the right.
Windsor was born June 20, 1929. Died at on Tuesday September 12 in New York, aged 88 years. Funeral rites was held at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan on Friday. Hundreds of mourners graced the occasion among whom are Public figures like Hillary Clinton who delivered the eulogy, Thomas Duane, who was the first openly gay member of New York senate, former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, civil rights activists and the gay community.
“Edie” a former Senior Systems Programmer at IBM married her partner, Thea Spyer, an Amsterdam born Clinical Psychologist, on May 22, 2007 in Toronto Canada. Spyer was diagnosed for heart related complications and was told by her doctors that she had only about a year to live in 2007. The couple decided to get married in Canada instead of New York where they lived because the US State was yet to legalize same-sex marriage. Spyer died in February 2009. Windsor became the sole beneficiary of her Estate. Windsor remarried in September 2016, to Judith Kasen at The New York City Hall.
To execute the inheritance of her late wife’s estate she was required to pay $363,053 in federal taxes. She could not seek relief under the federal estate tax exemption code for surviving spouses because she was prohibited by Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which refers only to marriage as a union of between a man and a woman.
She got ruling in her favor in March 2013 from the US Supreme Court after scaling through the US District Court for Southern District of New York and the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The US government was ordered by the court to refund her with interest. This judgement proscribed the Section 3 of DOMA Act and negates the Fifth Amendment which relates to the right.
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