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United States v. Windsor | 570 U.S. 744 (2013)

In 1996, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (or otherwise known as DOMA) in response to a movement going on at the time to legalize samesex marriage.

DOMA said that if a samesex couple got married in one state, another state wouldn’t need to recognize it. DOMA also defined marriage for purposes of federal law as a union between one man and one woman.

In 2007, two New York women, Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, decided to go to Ontario, Canada, and get married. They returned to New York, and New York recognized their marriage as legal. In 2009, Spyer died and left everything to Windsor.

Windsor tried to claim the estate tax exemption granted to surviving spouses under federal law, but she was denied because of the language in DOMA defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Windsor sued in federal court and argued that the provision in DOMA excluding samesex couples from the definition of marriage violated the Fifth Amendment. During the litigation, the Obama administration decided the DOMA provision was unconstitutional and directed the Justice Department not to defend it in court anymore. However, even so, the President said the Executive Branch would continue to enforce the law until the courts reached a final decision.

The federal government lost in the trial and appellate courts. The government then refused to comply with the judgment by not refunding Windsor for all the estate taxes she paid. The government appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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