Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Eric Schneiderman Cheers Gay Marriage Ruling

New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, an early proponent of gay marriage, celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Defense Of Marriage Act.

Schneiderman said Wednesday morning’s ruling was “a historic victory for the quintessentially American principle of equal justice under the law.”

The DOMA case was brought forth by a New York resident, Edie Windsor, who married her partner Thea Spyer in Canada in 2007. Following Spyer’s death in 2009, Windsor was denied estate tax exemptions for surviving spouses. Previous to the Supreme Court’s decision, a federal district court in New York held that DOMA was unconstitutional, a ruling affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

In February, Schneiderman filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of 15 states in the Supreme Court case, arguing that DOMA violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.