After 58 Years in a Couple, a Spouse Fights for Benefits

[theHandpuppet]

[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/22/your-money/a-same-sex-couple-together-for-58-years-but-husband-is-still-fighting-for-benefits.html?WT.mc_id=D-NYT-MKTG-MOD-13730-04-18-HD&WT.mc_ev=click&WT.mc_c=${CAMPAIGN_ID}&_r=0 [/url]

The New York Times
After 58 Years in a Couple, a Spouse Fights for Benefits
MARCH 21, 2014

On Dec. 13, 1953, Lawrence Schacht walked into the Cork Club on West 72nd Street in Manhattan and spotted Russell Frink Jr. at the bar. From that moment forward, the two were inseparable.

In 2004, they registered as domestic partners. In 2011, they married, less than a month after it first became possible for two people of the same sex to do so in New York State. Five months later, Mr. Frink died of emphysema at the age of 92.

Mr. Schacht mourned, but he also wrote to President Obama to thank him for his support for same-sex marriage and to tell him that he’d had no trouble settling his husband’s estate.

That note, however, turned out to be a bit premature. In January, the Social Security Administration told Mr. Schacht that he could not collect spousal benefits on his late husband’s account because they hadn’t been married long enough. To prevent sham deathbed marriages, couples generally need to have been married for nine months before a surviving spouse can collect.... MORE

[shenmue]

1. Mercy

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. I do not think Soc.Sec. is correct on that decision.

I remember reading that Soc. sec. recognizes common law marriages.
the guy needs to get a lawyer and sue.

It could be that they do not live in a common law state, but Soc. Sec. is a Federal law, shoud trump any state rules.

[markpkessinger]

3. I just saw this in the Times a couple of days ago, and it hit really hard because . . .

. . . I know Lawrence Schacht personally, and I knew his husband, Russell. I was in regular contact with both of them for a period of about 10 years, from 1990 to 2000, when I was a parishioner at St. Michael's Episcopal Church, where both were active members and where Lawrence eventually served after he was ordained a deacon. Lawrence is a wonderful man who, as a deacon, was absolutely tireless in his visits to the sick and hospitalized. St. Michael's had a lot of parishioners (even an associate rector) who were dying of AIDS, and I cannot even begin to describe the kind of love and compassion he brought to so many of those parishioners. In fact, he was the first person I met at St. Michael's. I had attended services on two other Sundays, each time at the end of the service scooting behind the clergy reception line and out of the door. On the third time, I was about to do the same thing, when a tall, very courtly gentleman grabbed me by the elbow and said, "This is not your first time here, is it?" The first person he introduced me to was Russell. Over the years, I spent time with them both in a church context and also in a purely social one -- they invited me to go to the opera with them a couple of times, and had me over for dinner and drinks on numerous occasions, where they would recount their stories of what it was like to be a gay man in New York in the days before Stonewall. I left the parish when I moved away from the neighborhood, and fell out of touch with Lawrence and Russell. But reading this article, it broke my heart to learn that he has this particular fight to endure at such an advanced age. But since seeing the article, I've talked to several folks who have spoken to him more recently, and they tell me that Lawrence is fighting this battle less for himself than for many others who may find themselves in a similar circumstance. He's a very courageous 86-year-old!

[theHandpuppet]

4. Thanks you for sharing your story with us

Lawrence and Russell were undoubtedly a devoted couple and their unselfishness and kindness deserves to be recognized in kind. If you should hear of any developments in this case, please let us know.