February 12, 2013. Free Times, Columbia. ACLU of SC Letter to the Editor. “The Long View” (Free Times cover story, Jan. 23) was a great piece on marriage for same-sex couples.
The ACLU is proud to be part of the legal team representing Edie Windsor in her challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which the U.S. Supreme Court will hear in March. The ACLU has a long history of fighting for fairness and dignity for all. Some 50 years ago, we fought successfully against laws banning interracial marriages in the case of Loving vs. Virginia. Your article rightly points out the parallels: As with Loving, the Windsor case today is about ensuring that we are all free to marry the people we love and that we are all treated fairly under the law.
Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer shared their life together. A committed couple, they got engaged in 1967 and after 42 years, they were finally able to legally marry.
They cared for each other in sickness and in health, through Spyer’s paralysis from multiple sclerosis until her death. Even though their home state recognized their marriage, the federal government did not because of the Defense of Marriage Act.
As an 80-year old widow, Windsor was forced to pay a large estate tax on the home and savings she shared with her spouse, Spyer — taxes that a widow whose husband had just died would not have to pay.
As Windsor’s story illustrates, the Defense of Marriage Act unfairly denies federal protections to committed same-sex couples who are legally married. When states allow committed same-sex couples to legally marry, it’s wrong for our government to discriminate against their marriages and to treat same-sex spouses like legal strangers instead of family.
Though it took South Carolina until 1998 — 31 years after Loving vs. Virginia — to repeal its anti-miscegenation statute, our politicians finally caught up with public opinion and the courts. When it comes to marriage for same-sex couples, we shouldn’t have to wait 30 years. The time has come to do what is right and just and to treat everyone as we would want to be treated.
As President Obama noted in his inaugural address: “If we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”
