United States v. Windsor
The Supreme Court struck down the part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that refused to recognize same-sex marriages for any purpose under federal law, ruling it unconstitutional.
The decision meant that a New York widow whose marriage to another woman was legally recognized by her state could not be denied the federal estate-tax exemption available to other surviving spouses, and it opened the door to federal recognition of same-sex marriages performed where they were legal.
“DOMA's principal effect is to identify a subset of state-sanctioned marriages and make them unequal.”
The majority's core conclusion about how DOMA singled out same-sex marriages for unequal treatment.
How it got here: A federal trial court and the Second Circuit ruled DOMA §3 unconstitutional and ordered a refund; the United States, though agreeing DOMA was unconstitutional, sought Supreme Court review.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, a New York couple, married in Canada in 2007; New York recognized the marriage as valid. When Spyer died in 2009, she left her estate to Windsor, who was denied the federal estate-tax exemption for surviving spouses because a federal law, the Defense of Marriage Act, defined "spouse" and "marriage" to exclude same-sex partners. Windsor paid $363,053 in taxes and sued for a refund.
The question before the Court
Could the federal government refuse to recognize a same-sex marriage that a state had made legal, denying a widow the federal estate-tax break given to other married couples?
The Court's answer
No — the Court ruled that the federal government could not refuse to recognize a same-sex marriage that a state had already made legal. Edith Windsor's marriage was valid under New York law, so denying her the federal estate-tax exemption available to other surviving spouses violated the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of liberty, because DOMA's only real purpose was to treat lawfully married same-sex couples as inferior.
The Court based its decision on the unusually sweeping reach of DOMA, which affected over 1,000 federal laws and singled out a class of marriages that states had chosen to protect. It emphasized that regulating marriage has traditionally been a state matter, and that Congress's decision to override state recognition reflected an improper purpose to disadvantage same-sex couples rather than any legitimate government interest.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Same-sex couples married under state law immediately became eligible for the more than 1,000 federal benefits and protections tied to marriage — including tax breaks, health benefits, immigration sponsorship, and Social Security survivor benefits — that DOMA had denied them, though the ruling left state-level marriage bans untouched.
What changes now
The ruling was final on the merits and required the federal government to treat same-sex marriages recognized by states as valid marriages for all federal purposes. Windsor was entitled to her refund. The Court explicitly left open whether states themselves could be required to permit or recognize same-sex marriage, an issue not decided here and left for future litigation.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly confined its holding to marriages a state has already made lawful, and it did not decide whether states could be required to permit same-sex marriage in the first place. The dissents argued the majority's reasoning nonetheless signaled how the Court might later rule on state marriage bans, but the majority did not resolve that question here.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Roberts
Chief Justice Roberts agreed the Court lacked jurisdiction and that Congress acted constitutionally. He argued the majority's reasoning rests on federalism concerns about an unusual federal intrusion into a traditionally state-controlled area, and stressed that this logic does not reach or decide whether states themselves may keep the traditional definition of marriage.
Dissent — Justice Scalia
Justice Scalia argued the Court had no power to decide the case because the government and Windsor agreed on the outcome, leaving no real adversarial controversy, and criticized the majority for recasting a jurisdictional requirement as a mere 'prudential' concern. On the merits, he argued Congress had many legitimate, non-malicious reasons for DOMA and that the majority's rhetoric branding supporters as bigots would inevitably be used against state marriage laws next.
Dissent — Justice Alito
Justice Alito argued the United States was not a proper party to seek review since it had already won everything it wanted below, though he believed the congressional group had standing. On the merits, he argued the Constitution is silent on same-sex marriage, that the question involves competing philosophical visions of marriage best left to the political process, and that DOMA was a reasonable exercise of Congress's power to define terms for federal law.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court first addressed whether it had power to hear the case at all, given that the government agreed with Windsor that the law was unconstitutional. It distinguished constitutional standing requirements, which cannot be waived, from prudential concerns, which are more flexible rules courts use to manage which cases to hear.
- Because the government still refused to pay Windsor's refund, the Court found a real, live dispute satisfying the constitutional standing requirement, comparing the situation to a past case where the government continued enforcing a law it viewed as unconstitutional.
- The Court found that a congressional group's vigorous defense of the law supplied the adversarial argument needed to satisfy the more flexible prudential concerns, allowing the case to proceed to the merits despite the government's agreement with the challenger.
- Turning to the merits, the Court noted that regulating marriage has traditionally been left to the states, and that New York had exercised its authority to extend marriage, and the dignity that comes with it, to same-sex couples.
- The Court held that DOMA's unusually broad reach — touching over 1,000 federal statutes — and its stated purpose to withhold recognition from marriages states had chosen to permit reflected an improper purpose to disapprove of and injure a class of people, which the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of liberty and due process does not allow.
- The Court concluded that DOMA's principal effect was to treat lawfully married same-sex couples as second-class spouses under federal law solely because of who they married, and that no legitimate governmental purpose could justify that stigma and disadvantage.