The ACLU has filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to hear 83-year-old Edith Windsor’s case against the Defense of Marriage Act. 

Windsor was forced to pay $363,000 in estate taxes after her spouse died because the federal government did not recognize their marriage. The ACLU petition argues that her case presents a question of whether DOMA is truly constitutional. The Obama administration stopped defending DOMA last year, and the measure has been ruled unconstitutional by three different federal courts.

“With Edie’s case and the two others, the high court has before it striking illustrations of the many different harms that DOMA inflicts on many thousands of married same-sex couples all across the country,” said James Esseks, director of the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Project, in a statement. “Edie and Thea got married after making a life-long commitment to each other, and it’s just wrong for the government to pretend that they were legal strangers.” 

Windsor and Spyer lived together for more than 40 years in New York City, where Windsor cared for Spyer after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1977. The couple married in Canada in 2007, and when Spyer died in 2009, Windsor, who spent her career as an IBM programmer, had to pay more than $363,000 in estate taxes solely because the federal government did not recognize her marriage. As a result, she filed a lawsuit in 2010 that challenged DOMA as a violation of her equal protection rights. 

“Edie Windsor, who recently celebrated her 83rd birthday, suffers from a serious heart condition,” said Roberta Kaplan in the news release. “Because the District Court’s ruling in her favor is entitled to an automatic stay of enforcement, Edie cannot yet receive a refund of the unconstitutional estate tax that she was forced to pay simply for being gay. The constitutional injury inflicted on Edie should be remedied within her lifetime.” 

Powerful.