Edie Windsor ✝
Marriage equality activist
Edie Windsor was a member of countless LGBT organizations in the past 30 years, including East End Gay Organizations, the LGBT Community Center, and Team New York at the Gay Games in NYC in 1994. She was also one of the first Marriage Ambassadors for Empire State Pride Agenda. The Edie Windsor Fund for Old Lesbians, gifted to Windsor on her 70th birthday and maintained and administered by Open Meadows Foundation, provides meaningful grants to projects by and for lesbian older adults.
Windsor served on the Board of Directors of SAGE from 1986-1988 and 2005-2007. She was a founding member of the Improv acting group, “Old Queers Acting Up”, whose rallying cry was, “Out of the closest, onto the stage.” For several years, this group performed skits around ageism, racism, and homophobia at various venues.
The case of United States v. Windsor is arguably the most influential legal precedent in the struggle for LGBT marriage equality. In its landmark 2013 ruling, the Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which by its terms had excluded gay couples from all the benefits and protections of marriage under federal law. Since Windsor, more than forty federal district court opinions and four circuit courts have held that the U.S. Constitution requires that gay people be allowed to marry.
Windsor passed away on September 12, 2017.
The Common Good was extremely proud to have honored Windsor as a marriage equality citizen activist, presenting her with the American Spirit Award for Citizen Activism at The American Spirit Awards 2013 on November 13, 2013.
