United States v. Windsor
The Court struck down the part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that defined marriage, for all federal purposes, as only between a man and a woman, ruling it unconstitutional as applied to same-sex couples already married under state law.
Because the law denied federal recognition to marriages that states like New York had made legal, the decision opened the door to federal benefits for same-sex married couples nationwide and set the stage for later rulings on marriage equality.
How it got here: A federal district court and the Second Circuit ruled the marriage-definition law unconstitutional and ordered a tax refund; the government did not comply and the Supreme Court agreed to review the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, a same-sex couple who married in Canada and lived in New York, had their marriage recognized by New York State. When Spyer died, she left her estate to Windsor, who was denied the federal estate-tax exemption for surviving spouses because the federal Defense of Marriage Act defined marriage as excluding same-sex couples. Windsor paid the tax and sued for a refund, arguing the law violated equal protection.
The question before the Court
Could the federal government refuse to recognize a same-sex marriage that a state had already made legal, just for purposes of federal benefits like the estate-tax exemption?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court ruled that the federal government could not deny federal recognition, and the benefits that come with it, to a marriage a state had already made legal. Section 3 of DOMA violated the Fifth Amendment because its real purpose and effect was to treat same-sex couples' state-sanctioned marriages as second-class, denying them the dignity and equal treatment their state had already conferred.
The Court found that Congress's stated reasons did not explain the law's unusual reach across more than a thousand federal statutes, and concluded its history and practical operation showed it was meant to impose inequality and stigma on same-sex married couples. As a result, Windsor was entitled to the estate-tax refund she sought.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Same-sex couples legally married under state law could now access more than a thousand federal rights and benefits tied to marriage — including estate-tax exemptions, Social Security survivor benefits, and health coverage — that the federal law had denied them. The ruling also reaffirmed that states hold primary authority over defining marriage.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision, not a temporary order. The federal government must now recognize same-sex marriages that states have made legal for purposes of federal law, including tax refunds like Windsor's. The Court expressly limited its holding to marriages already recognized by states, leaving open whether states themselves must allow same-sex marriage — a question the Court would take up two years later.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly said its holding was confined to marriages already made lawful by a state; it did not decide whether states themselves must permit or recognize same-sex marriage. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia disputed in dissent how far the majority's reasoning would ultimately reach on that separate question.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Roberts
Chief Justice Roberts agreed the Court lacked jurisdiction and, on the merits, that Congress acted constitutionally in retaining the traditional definition of marriage for uniformity's sake. He rejected the majority's suggestion of a hateful motive, but stressed that the majority's federalism-based reasoning does not decide whether states themselves may keep the traditional definition of marriage.
Dissent — Justice Scalia
“We have no power to decide this case.”Scalia's opening objection that no real legal dispute remained for the Court to resolve.
Justice Scalia argued the Court had no power to hear the case at all because the government and Windsor agreed on the outcome, so there was no real adversarial controversy as Article III requires. On the merits, he argued DOMA had many legitimate, non-malicious justifications and accused the majority of unfairly branding DOMA's supporters as bigots, predicting the reasoning would soon be used against state marriage laws too.
Dissent — Justice Alito
Justice Alito argued the United States was not a proper party to seek review since it had won below, though the House's advisory group did have standing. On the merits, he argued same-sex marriage is a new, contested policy question the Constitution leaves to the political process, not a matter of established equal protection or due process law, and that the traditional equal-protection framework does not fit disputes about what marriage fundamentally is.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court first addressed jurisdiction: because the government still refused to pay the court-ordered refund even though it agreed the law was unconstitutional, a live financial injury remained, giving the Court the case-or-controversy footing Article III requires before it can hear a dispute.
- Beyond that constitutional floor, the Court weighed prudential concerns — self-imposed judicial rules about when a case is appropriate to hear — and found that the House's legal advisory group's vigorous defense of the law supplied enough adversarial argument to justify deciding the case despite the executive branch's agreement with the challenger.
- Turning to the merits, the Court noted that defining and regulating marriage has traditionally been left to the states, and that the challenged law departed sharply from that tradition by imposing a single federal definition across more than 1,000 statutes and regulations.
- Applying Fifth Amendment due process and equal protection principles, the Court held that a law motivated by a bare desire to harm a disfavored group cannot survive constitutional review, and found that the law's text, legislative history, and practical effect showed it was designed to injure same-sex couples whom certain states had chosen to protect through marriage.
- Because the law's principal purpose and effect was to demean and impose inequality on state-sanctioned same-sex marriages, the Court concluded it deprived those couples of liberty protected by the Fifth Amendment.