United States v. Windsor: The 2013 DOMA Decision Explained

United States v. Windsor was decided on June 26, 2013. By a 5–4 vote, the Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, the provision that defined marriage for all federal purposes as a union between one man and one woman. The ruling did not yet establish a nationwide right to marry, but it ended a system in which a couple could be married under state law and treated as unmarried by the federal government.

The case began with an estate-tax bill. Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer had shared a life for more than four decades. They married in Ontario, Canada, in 2007, and their home state of New York recognized the marriage. When Spyer died in 2009, Windsor inherited her estate but was denied the federal marital deduction available to a surviving spouse.

How an estate-tax dispute reached the Court

Windsor paid $363,053 in federal estate tax and sought a refund. The Internal Revenue Service denied it because Section 3 of DOMA prevented federal agencies from recognizing her as a spouse. She sued, arguing that the distinction violated constitutional guarantees of equal treatment.

The Obama administration initially defended DOMA, as executive administrations commonly defend federal statutes. In 2011, the Justice Department concluded that classifications based on sexual orientation should receive heightened judicial scrutiny and that Section 3 could not survive that review. The administration stopped defending the law but continued enforcing it until a final court judgment.

That unusual position created a procedural question: if the government agreed with Windsor that the law was unconstitutional, was there still a real case? The government continued withholding the refund, so the majority found a concrete financial dispute. The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives defended DOMA, ensuring the Court heard arguments supporting the statute.

What Section 3 of DOMA did

Congress enacted DOMA in 1996. Section 2 addressed interstate recognition, while Section 3 supplied federal definitions of “marriage” and “spouse.” Those definitions applied across the US Code and federal regulations, affecting taxes, Social Security, immigration, military benefits, bankruptcy and many other programs.

The result was a split status. New York considered Windsor married, but the federal government did not. Thousands of statutory and regulatory provisions could turn on that difference. A same-sex couple might file state taxes jointly but federal taxes separately, or receive state spousal protection while being excluded from a federal benefit.

By 2013, several states and the District of Columbia licensed same-sex marriages. The federal-state mismatch therefore affected a growing number of families. The 2013 calendar places the Windsor decision on the same day the Court dismissed an appeal concerning California’s Proposition 8, allowing a lower-court ruling against that ban to stand.

Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for a majority that included Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan. The opinion emphasized both federalism and equality. States traditionally held broad authority over domestic relations, and New York had chosen to give same-sex couples the dignity and responsibilities of marriage.

Section 3, the majority reasoned, imposed a federal disadvantage on a class that a state had sought to protect. It created two forms of marriage within the same state and affected couples’ children as well as the spouses. The Court held that this deprivation of liberty violated the Fifth Amendment.

The majority limited its formal holding to marriages lawful under state law. Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito dissented in separate opinions or joined parts of one another’s opinions. The dissents disputed the Court’s jurisdiction, constitutional reasoning or both, and warned that the logic would influence challenges to state marriage laws.

The federal changes after Windsor

Federal agencies had to decide which marriages counted when couples lived in a state that did not recognize their marriage. Some programs used a “place of celebration” rule, recognizing a marriage valid where performed. Others were tied by statute to a couple’s state of residence. Implementation therefore arrived agency by agency rather than through one switch.

The Treasury Department and IRS adopted a place-of-celebration rule for federal taxes. The Defense Department extended benefits to same-sex military spouses. Immigration authorities recognized qualifying marriages for petitions and benefits. The Government Accountability Office tracked changes across more than one thousand federal provisions connected to marital status.

Windsor received the tax refund she had sought. More broadly, married couples gained access to federal responsibilities as well as benefits, including joint tax treatment and rules governing inheritance, bankruptcy and benefit eligibility. The decision made the practical meaning of federal recognition visible in ordinary paperwork.

From Windsor to Obergefell

After June 2013, federal and state courts cited Windsor while reviewing state marriage bans. Judges disagreed about its exact reach, but many concluded that excluding same-sex couples could not be justified under the Constitution. Litigation moved rapidly through appellate courts, producing the conflict that the Supreme Court resolved in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015—exactly two years after Windsor.

Obergefell required every state to license and recognize same-sex marriages. Congress later enacted the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022, repealing the remaining DOMA provisions and establishing federal and interstate recognition protections for valid marriages.

Windsor remains useful for understanding how constitutional cases can grow from a precise administrative injury. The question was not abstract for Edith Windsor: it was a specific tax assessed because federal law refused to call her a spouse. Readers can see the decision in the sequence of the full 2013 calendar or use the day-of-week tool to verify that June 26 fell on a Wednesday. The legal importance lies in the Court’s answer: the federal government could not create that unequal status.