This is a tremendous victory for same sex couples who lost a spouse, only to find they were not married for the required 9 months (although they may have been together for decades before marriage was legal) and were denied social security survival benefits!
While the number of states that allowed same-sex couples to marry gradually increased from 2004 until 2015, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all remaining state bans, that freedom came too late for many couples. Even where same-sex couples married as soon as they could once their state marriage bans were lifted, many were unable to be married for nine months before one spouse died, and SSA denied them benefits for not being married for long enough.
Selected excerpt(s), photo and linked article courtesy of Lambda Legal.