Edith Windsor, the woman whose victory
at the Supreme Court paved the way for equal marriage rights for gay
and lesbian couples, said Sunday she was “so honored” Hillary
Clinton cited her as an LGBT role model.
The Washington Blade last week
asked Clinton: “Whom would you identify as an LGBT role model?”
“I’m inspired by Edie Windsor, the
lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that paved the way for
marriage equality,” Clinton
answered.
“Edie is a truly remarkable woman:
smart, feisty, and very brave. She came of age at a time when many
LGBT people felt they couldn’t live openly – but she had the
courage to stand up for her marriage in such a bold, public way and
the faith to believe that justice would ultimately prevail. And even
though her own case has been fought and won, she’s still fighting
just as fiercely for the rights of all LGBT Americans,” she added.
Windsor's wife Thea Spyer died two
years after the couple married in Canada. The New York resident
challenged the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prohibited the
federal government from recognizing the couple's marriage, after she
received a $363,000 estate tax bill following Spyer's death in 2009.
The 2013 Supreme Court ruling that
struck down a key provision of DOMA is also credited with providing
the legal framework for last year's landmark ruling in Obergefell,
which found that gay couples have a constitutional right to marry.
Windsor responded
to Clinton in an op-ed.
“While
I am obviously so honored by her remarks, I actually think that the
person those words best describe is Hillary herself,” she
wrote. “Hillary is a fighter who never gives up. As the first
woman President of the United States, she will fight for the Equality
Act, take on LGBT homelessness, and will implement a plan to move us
closer to an AIDS-free generation.”
Windsor went on to
encourage readers to vote for Clinton: “We must defeat [Donald]
Trump and his homophobic vice presidential candidate, Mike Pence.”