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Gay widow gets her day in court

FILE - In this Oct. 18, 2012 file photo, Edith Windsor, 83, attends a news conference at the offices of the New York Civil Liberties Union, in New York. A federal appeals court in Manhattan has become the second in the nation to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional. The ruling came in a case brought by Windsor. She sued the government in November 2010 because she was told to pay $363,053 in federal estate tax after her partner of 44 years, Thea Spyer, died in 2009. They had married in Canada in 2007. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 18, 2012 file photo, Edith Windsor, 83, attends a news conference at the offices of the New York Civil Liberties Union, in New York. A federal appeals court in Manhattan has become the second in the nation to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional. The ruling came in a case brought by Windsor. She sued the government in November 2010 because she was told to pay $363,053 in federal estate tax after her partner of 44 years, Thea Spyer, died in 2009. They had married in Canada in 2007. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

Edith Windsor walked out of the court after arguments in her case challenging the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and a huge roar erupted from the crowd of fans gathered on the Supreme Court steps. Windsor sued the federal government after she was forced to pay additional taxes because it did not recognize her marriage to a woman, Thea Spyer, under the law known as DOMA.