Her wife passed away in 2014, and now, a Ft. Myers woman will finally receive the Social Security survivor’s benefits to which she is entitled.
Arlene Goldberg was one of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit challenging Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage. She and her wife, Carol Goldwasser, married in New York in 2011 and Goldwasser died in 2014, on the same day the ACLU of Florida announced it would challenge the marriage ban in court. Although the couple had been together for 47 years, Goldberg was not able to receive Goldwasser’s Social Security benefits, because Florida did not recognize their marriage.
U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle struck down the ban in late 2014, and marriage equality went into effect for Florida in January of 2015. Still, according to the ACLU, Goldberg fought for years to receive the benefits to which she was entitled. The ACLU assisted Goldberg to petition the Social Security Administration and now, she will receive the full benefits going forward, and the SSA has paid her the back benefits she was denied after Goldwasser’s death.
Daniel Tilley, LGBT rights staff attorney at the ACLU of Florida, says they’re happy it was resolved but this is just one of many cases.
“Social Security survivors’ benefits are just one of the many federal protections and responsibilities that come with marriage that most people take for granted,” Tilly says in a media release. “Now that the Supreme Court has held that states banning loving same-sex couples from marriage is unconstitutional, we look forward to future guidance from the Social Security Administration making clear that all surviving spouses whose marriages were wrongfully not recognized by their home state should be treated the same as anyone else.”
