From The ACLU: http://www.aclu.org/blog/lgbt-rights/another-doma-win?ms=eml_120608_DOMA_fb_eml&t=Another+DOMA+Win!
By James Esseks
June 8, 2012
June 8, 2012
When it rains, it pours! Late this
afternoon, another federal judge ruled that the so-called federal
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violates the federal constitution. The
ruling came in an ACLU case brought by Edie Windsor after the death of
her spouse and partner of 44 years, Thea Spyer.
Edie and Thea
became a couple way back in 1965. By 1967, long before marriage for
same-sex couples was anything more than a pipe dream, Thea proposed
marriage to Edie – that’s just what their relationship meant to
them. Thea couldn’t give her an engagement ring, because Edie wouldn’t
have been able to explain it to her colleagues at IBM, so she gave her a
diamond pin instead. They were inseparable for the next four decades.
In
1977, Thea was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and they both worked,
over the next 30 years, to accommodate Thea’s progressive
paralysis. She first used a cane, then crutches, then a manual
wheelchair, and finally a motorized one that she could operate with her
one good hand.
In 2007, with Thea’s health failing, they got married in Canada. In Edie’s words,
“If you live together for 42 years, and you love each other for all
those years, how could marriage be different? It turns out it’s
different, and you don’t know why.” Edie and Thea enjoyed married life
for the next two years, until Thea died.
In New York, Edie and
Thea were a lawfully married couple, but because of DOMA, they weren’t
in the eyes of the federal government. So when Thea left their apartment
and the rest of her possessions to Edie, the IRS taxed that inheritance
as though they were strangers. Where a straight widow would have owed
nothing at all, Edie had to pay over $363,000 in federal taxes.
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