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Smarter. Faster. More colorful.



As the year ends, USA TODAY recognizes people in the news who embody these qualities. Today we highlight the work of same-sex marriage pioneer Edie Windsor. Upset at facing a $363,000 federal tax bill following the death of her spouse, Windsor, now 85, filed a lawsuit seeking recognition of her marriage to Thea Spyer. In a 2013 decision, the Supreme Court ruled "the principal purpose and the necessary effect of this law are to demean those persons who are in a lawful same-sex marriage," swinging the tide in favor of legal same-sex marriage. Today gay marriage is legal in 35 states, nearly double the total of states allowing the unions at the end of 2013.

NEW YORK — The subject is same-sex marriage, but the vivacious blonde who has come to personify the issue stops her interrogator with a scolding.

"Could I suggest that you don't say same-sex marriage anymore?" Edie Windsor asks politely. "Because it's not. It's marriage."

As in her own marriage to the late psychologist Thea Spyer, which followed a 40-year engagement. As in the wedding ceremonies she attends or is forced to skip because she can't keep up with all the invitations. As in the marriages sanctioned by judges in 27 states this year, all of which mention Windsor by name.

While 2013 brought the landmark ruling in United States v. Windsor that forced the federal government to recognize legally married gay men and lesbians, 2014 was the year that the case spurred a judicial juggernaut. From Oklahoma in January to Mississippi in December, federal judges in the nation's most conservative states declared that what this 85-year-old widow started can't be stopped.

From the comfort of her apartment at the foot of Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village, Windsor recalls the "mind-blowing days" when state laws and constitutional amendments banning gay marriage were falling like so many dominoes.

"The statistics were changing every night," she says. Even now, Windsor has trouble with the math – 35 states where marriage is legal for two men or two women, and 10 others where lower court judges have said it should be.

"I didn't expect any of it," she says, "and certainly not in the time frame."

To be sure, several recent decisions upholding gay marriage bans in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana and Puerto Rico have slowed progress and put the ultimate resolution in doubt. The Supreme Court that brought Windsor instant fame on June 26, 2013, will have to make the final call – perhaps next year.

But the court may have tipped its hand in October when it refused to hear appeals from Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Indiana and Wisconsin challenging lower court rulings that struck down gay marriage bans. Now most Americans live in states where such marriages are legal.

CLOSE Edith Windsor fought for years for marriage equality. She watched with joy as the tide turned with several court decisions in 2014.

Windsor, a former IBM computer systems programmer, isn't discouraged by the setbacks. She never expected the fight she began in 2009 to be easy.

At least one part of the progress made to date cannot be taken away, she insists. "They can't reverse the marriages," she says. "People who are married are married."

AFTER WINDSOR, THE DELUGE

When Windsor and her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, filed the lawsuit that would change the arc of history, only a handful of states allowed gays and lesbians to marry. By the time they won their case, there were a dozen. After Windsor came the deluge.

All that happened because Windsor balked at a $363,000 federal tax bill on Spyer's estate in 2009 – a tax that would not have been levied on the surviving spouse in a heterosexual marriage.

"The principal purpose and the necessary effect of this law are to demean those persons who are in a lawful same-sex marriage," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the 5-4 decision – one that Windsor says she's read "20 times."

In the 18 months since, as gay marriage moved from seeming incredible to inevitable, Windsor has been feted by the likes of President Obama and former president Bill Clinton. Plaques and trophies adorn her harpsichord. A 2014 photo album rests atop her coffee table. So many letters pour in from around the country and the world that she now responds with a pre-printed card.

Most fulfilling, however, has been the rapid pace of court decisions that have enabled tens of thousands of couples to marry or have their marriages recognized in their home states.

"The decisions are multiplying," Windsor says. "The speed and the quantity of cases, it hasn't stopped."

Neither has the steady progress in public opinion polls, which show that about 55% of Americans say gay marriage should be legal.

"For ages before my case, that was not true," Windsor says. She hopes those sentiments will turn the tide against what she calls "terrible and ugly" state proposals aimed at shielding merchants with religious objections from participating in same-sex marriages.

While Windsor is floored by her paparazzi-like fame, she takes greatest pride in the advances made by her gay and lesbian community.

For young people in particular, she says, "hopefully it's the beginning of the end of suicides ... the beginning of the end of stigma ... the beginning of the end of internalized homophobia."

STEPPING INTO THE SUBWAY

Five years removed from the heartache of Spyer's death, Edie Windsor is a whirlwind. She recalls the days when she begged her cardiologist to keep her alive long enough for the Supreme Court's ruling in her case. Now she's walking 10,000 brisk steps a day, and her heart function is improving.

Her schedule is filled out for the first six months of 2015 already, public appearances wedged between her sign language classes (she is hard of hearing) and chorus practice (Spyer encouraged her to sing). Riding the Broadway-7th Avenue Local subway, she revels in a brief dose of anonymity.

"What I am is a draw," Windsor says. "Every organization that is having something wants me there because they double the number of people there."

How long will she be able to keep up the pace? Windsor says it doesn't matter – the final victories in the gay marriage movement will happen, with her or without her.

"I've had a lot of the celebration and a lot of the joy," she says. "It's OK if I'm not there for the rest of it."

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE BY THE NUMBERS



0 – Number of states where same-sex marriage was legal in 2002

9 – Number of states with gay marriage when Edie Windsor's case was heard at Supreme Court in March 2013

13 – Number of states with gay marriage when Edie Windsor's case was decided in June 2013

18 – Number of states with gay marriage at end of 2013

35 – Number of states with gay marriage after 9th Circuit appeals court struck down gay marriage bans on Oct. 7

4 – Number of states where marriage bans have been upheld by a federal appeals court

15 – Number of states where same-sex marriage remains illegal

Also in this series:

Money: Under Armour has over-the-top 2014

Tech: Tristan Walker's inspiring journey to Silicon Valley

Life: Pharrell aces every platform in 2014

Sports: LeBron James builds on his kingdom