Obama Remembers LGBTQ Rights Icon Edie Windsor With Heartfelt Tribute

Curtis M. Wong
Updated

Former President Barack Obama praised LGBTQ rights activist Edith “Edie” Windsor as a “quiet hero” in a lengthy statement following the 88-year-old’s death Tuesday.

Windsor’s 2013 lawsuit against the federal government prompted the Supreme Court to strike down a key part of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA. The suit, United States v. Windsor, was integral to the 2015 high court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

“America’s long journey towards equality has been guided by countless small acts of persistence, and fueled by the stubborn willingness of quiet heroes to speak out for what’s right,” Obama wrote of Windsor, a Pennsylvania native who married her second wife, Judith Kasen-Windsor, last year. “Few were as small in stature as Edie Windsor – and few made as big a difference to America.”

The former president touted Windsor’s role in the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling on marriage equality, which he called “a victory for human decency, equality, freedom, and justice.”

“I thought about all the millions of quiet heroes across the decades whose countless small acts of courage slowly made an entire country realize that love is love – and who, in the process, made us all more free,” he added. “They deserve our gratitude. And so does Edie.”

Obama posted the statement to his official Facebook page, alongside a tender photo snapped by former White House photographer Pete Souza.

Obama joined a long list of notables, including former President Bill Clinton, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who sounded off on Windsor’s death.

Hillary Clinton also offered her condolences on Twitter late Tuesday. Windsor, she wrote, “showed the world that love can be a powerful force for change.”

Catch the latest in LGBTQ news by subscribing to the Queer Voices newsletter.

Also on HuffPost

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

NEW YORK, NY - CIRCA 1980: Gay Pride demonstration circa 1980 in New York City. (Photo by Arpadi/IMAGES/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - CIRCA 1980: Gay Pride demonstration circa 1980 in New York City. (Photo by Arpadi/IMAGES/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - CIRCA 1980: Gay Pride demonstration circa 1980 in New York City. (Photo by Arpadi/IMAGES/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - CIRCA 1980: Gay Pride demonstration circa 1980 in New York City. (Photo by Arpadi/IMAGES/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - CIRCA 1983: Gay & Lesbian Pride Parade circa 1983 in New York City. (Photo by PL Gould/IMAGES/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - CIRCA 1983: Gay & Lesbian Pride Parade circa 1983 in New York City. (Photo by PL Gould/IMAGES/Getty Images)
A gay rights march in New York in favour of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. (Photo by Peter Keegan/Getty Images)
A gay rights march in New York in favour of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. (Photo by Peter Keegan/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 25: Participants in the 25 April 1993 gay rights march, held back by a line of parade marshals, scream and yell at a number of religious counter-demonstrators along the parade route. Hundreds of thousands of gay men and women joined in the march and rally to demand acceptance and equal rights. (Photo credit should read ARYEH RABINOVICH/AFP/Getty Images)
View along 6th Avenue as hundreds of people march (and drive) towards Central Park in a Gay Pride Parade, New York, New York, June 26, 1975. (Photo by Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images)
View along 6th Avenue as hundreds of people march (and drive) towards Central Park in a Gay Pride Parade, New York, New York, June 26, 1975. (Photo by Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images)
JUN 25 1978, JUN 26 1978; Marchers For Homosexual Rights Gather At Civic Center Pavilion; More than 1,000 men and women participated in march from Cheesman Park to the center for their rally. The group has a platform calling for an end of alleged police harassment, leggislative support of lesbian-gay rights and an end to discrimination based on sexual preference. It also asks that homosexuals be allowed to raise children. The marchers carried signs and chanted slogans during their march, which began at about noon Sunday.; (Photo By Kenn Bisio/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
View of the gay pride parade in Boston, Massachusetts, 1977. (Photo by Spencer Grant/Getty Images)
View of the gay pride parade in Boston, Massachusetts, 1977. (Photo by Spencer Grant/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - CIRCA 1979: Gay Rights Demonstrators circa 1979 in New York City. (Photo by Images Press/IMAGES/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - CIRCA 1979: Gay Rights Demonstrators circa 1979 in New York City. (Photo by Images Press/IMAGES/Getty Images)
A crowd of gay rights protesters, including two priests, marching in the New York Gay Day Parade. (Photo by Peter Keegan/Getty Images)
A crowd of gay rights protesters, including two priests, marching in the New York Gay Day Parade. (Photo by Peter Keegan/Getty Images)

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.