Rights group sues government after gay widower denied spousal benefits [View all]
Source: NBC
Anthony Gonzales and Mark Johnson met in 1998 and spent the next 15 years together. When New Mexico legalized same-sex marriage in 2013, they married the very next day. Six months later, however, Johnson passed away from cancer.
Despite living together as a committed couple for over a decade and marrying as soon as they were legally permitted, Gonzales was not eligible to receive his husband’s Social Security benefits. This is because Section 216 of the Social Security Act stipulates that couples must be married for at least nine months in order for the surviving spouse to receive benefits.
We established a joint checking account, named each other as our beneficiaries, and cared for each other when sick — basically, all the things that committed couples do,” Gonzales said in a statement shared with NBC News. “We got married as soon as humanly possible, but I’m still barred from receiving the same benefits as other widowers, even though my husband worked hard and paid into the social security system with every paycheck.”
As a result, LGBTQ civil rights group Lambda Legal announced on Thursday that it is suing the Social Security Administration on Gonzales’s behalf.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/rights-group-sues-government-after-gay-widower-denied-spousal-benefits-n948256?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma
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