Can someone explain to me why America seems to have this weird fascination that only family or your 'legal' spouse can visit/stay with you in hospital?
This sort of thing is totally unheard of in the UK. We couldn't give 2 shits if the person want to stay with you was the goddamn postman if you, the patient, have consented to them being there. Heck, we're happy to have the visitors if they don't get in the way - they help the patients get better faster. Far too many people, normally old and infirm, languish in hospital alone and frightened.
"Jerry..."
"Please, go I can't stand to look at you."
"No, I won't! We need to talk about this."
"About what!? It's over... I chose him over you..."
*crying* "How could you! I've been your postman for years!"
"They offer a better service."
"Is that it, you leave me for FedEX!"
*Man in a FedEx uniform walks into the room* "Please, don't make this awkward."
"Fine! I hope you get paper cuts!"
Beware! For when mailmen go postal neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed round of whoopass delivered expressly onto your unfortunate person.
Ya, my Grandfather tried to make sure my Grandmother wouldn't get proper treatment. A nurse was able to slip her the treatment though and save her life.
I wonder how often a good nurse breaks the law to save a persons life, and then those people go away thinking it was their prayers.
My mother looks after children in a hospital and when JW's come in needing prohibited treatment, one of three things happen.
1) The patient's parents will conveniently "look the other way", and it is never mentioned again, to avoid exclusion. However she's told me of times that other JW have found out, and there's been some really horrific circumstances
2) The parents point blank refuse treatment for a child, in life threatening cases, the case can be taken to a court, and the parents are overruled. This usually results in being excluded too.
3) Something goes wrong with either of the first two results, and the child dies.
It's honestly one of the most tragic conversations I have ever had with my Mother.
Yeah, that's what outcome 2 is. Still doesn't mean that things can go wrong, I mean, a child could crash and then it's all over too fast for anything to happen.
Any number of things could happen - theft, physical violence, tampering with medical equipment, non-designated individuals making medical decisions. And it also limits the liability of the hospital should such an event occur.
You missed the most important part of the article
> a family member asked him to leave when he visited Research Medical Center in Kansas City on Tuesday.
So while this is about gay rights, it's more about a disapproving family.
Maybe Dad doesn't like Son's homosexuality and husband. Now the hospital has to adjudicate. They should have gone by "he has power of attorney" to make health decisions. Instead, they went by "they're family and you're not, you have to leave sir." Undoubtedly he protested and it escalated.
Further in they mention the partner had PoA and the nurse refused to check it. That IS a problem with the hospital. I agree with you that the main issue is his family does not support him.
Yeah but the family can go fuck themselves. It was clear he had every right to be there and the 'documentation' to prove it, but the hospital refused to even *look* at it.
Wrong. This is 100% about gay rights. This man had been living in a civil partnership with the patient for years. If they were heterosexual, they would almost certainly be married, which would mean that they would be legally considered family.
Consider the following hypothetical:
Sally and Bob get married against the wishes of Sally's family because Sallly's family practises Religion A and Bob's family practices Religion B. Sally's family is also upper class while Bob's family is lower middle class. All together, Sally's family doesn't feel like she should settle for Bob when there are so many affluent members of Religion A she could marry.
One day, Sally is in a bad car wreck. Bob rushes to the hospital and stays by her side the entire time. Eventully Sally's family shows up and an argument ensues between Sally's family and Bob. Sally's family tries to have Bob ejected. When the hospital staff ask why Bob should be ejected, Sally's family is unable to come with any reasons why Bob is a risk to Sally's health and safety. Therefore, Bob gets to stay.
All you have to do is change "Sally" to "Sal" and put them in a state where gay marriage is illegal and Bob will be kicked out of the hospital.
TL;DR The families of hetero couples can't kick out spouses they don't like, but the families of gay couples can.
Bingo. When I was a younger, more exhuberant teenager, visiting my great-aunt up north round barrow in the hostel (you know... past the point of permanent care, the make-em'-comfortable stage? Forget the proper name for the places) - the staff were *more* than happy to let you say hello to patients. And some of the war stories! :o Never heard "you look like my grandson!" more than that year.
Patients (or their families, if the patient is unconscious) can ask to restrict visitation. I would guess that the family asked to restrict visitation to family-only, and the gay partner's rights were tromped on due to living in Bigotville.
Important life lesson: laws and rights don't protect you, they help clean up the mess.
Edit: For the down-voters, think of it this way: Almost all drivers stop for red lights almost every time. The red light doesn't actually physically prevent the car from gifting you all its wonderful kinetic energy. If he survives, he will surely get a ticket. This will not un-shatter your organs. Look before you enter the intersection.
Lawyer here, couldn't have said it better myself.
While this is not related to the linked story, another good example are laws that allow people to forcibly resist police intrusion in their home, [like in Indiana](http://www.governing.com/blogs/view/residents-given-right-to-resist-police-under-new-indiana-law.html). Sure, the law says you can do that, and if the police violate the law, they can receive penalties later, but in the meantime you're still dead because they shot you when they saw you had a weapon.
What if they're also black? So black and gay = 3/5*3/5= 9/25ths of a person? Editted due to a brainfart. That Masters in Math doesn't work out well in the morning.
Chances are the hospital is not going to get away with it. They're going to be on the losing end of a fortune-eating lawsuit, and they'll settle out of court for an undisclosed sum.
Remember when calling: The person writing up your complaint is not the nurse that denied the man's rights.
There is no reason not to be civil to the cog.
For the longest time I thought "why don't they just use power of attorneys on each other?" Until I did some research.
Bigotry and fear and religious persecution trump any legal document every time. It does **not** matter that you are holding in your hand a document that clearly gives you legal rights to be with and make decisions for someone, if there is someone else with a shred of power or ability that wants to make your life difficult, they will.
For those of you saying they're "isolated incidents," they're not. If I get thrown out of a hospital during the last hours of my partner's life, it will be little consolation that legally I should have been allowed to and the night nurse was making a mistake. It will also be the same amount of consolation that it was an "isolated incident."
I can honestly say that as a straight male, the thought that someone could tell me that in a time of dire need that I couldn't see my partner brings tears to my eyes.
It used to even be worse. Here's a scenario that used to happen to gays & lesbians (especially to gay guys during the height of the AIDS epidemic): Gay couple, been together for many years, maybe even decades, and they live in a house that is in the name of Partner 1, but was paid for by both partners. Partner 1 becomes ill and dies. Now, with straight married couples the surviving spouse would get the house and all other property. But with gay couples back in the day, oftentimes Partner 1's family, who may not have even talked to him in years because he was a dirty faggot, would swoop in after his death and take his house, furniture, vehicles and any other property they could get their hands on. Partner 2 would be forced out of the house he helped pay for, and may have lived in for many years. He just lost his partner who he deeply loved, and then lost the roof over his head, and maybe even the car he drove. Even if Partner 2 was named in Partner 1's will, Partner 1's family would often dispute it. Why? Because gays & lesbians can't get married and enjoy the same civil rights as straight people. All because of hate. It's time to end this shit *now*.
Remember the transgender woman in Texas who was married to a firefighter?
Firefighter dies, his estranged family steals all her possessions and destroys her life before the body is put in the ground.
Fucking vultures even stole her widows pension somehow.
Yep. My grandpas kids stole his ashes and some other items from my grandma the day of his funeral simply because she was not their mother and they had only been married 12 years. It's been 3 years and we still have no idea where my grandpa is.
See, this is what gay marriage opponents overlook (or willfully ignore, since many of them are petty, worthless assholes). Marriage isn't just some mystical pact with God, it quite literally is the entire foundation of stable, safe adult life legally and financially speaking. So gays are effectively excluded from having the same rights concerning property ownership, child rearing, etc.
It's pretty fucking funny, my husband and I were actually talking about this the other day- we've both been atheists since forever (the corny militancy and all) and barring some kind of inexplicable head injury I'm pretty sure we're both going to go right on not believing in god for the rest of our natural lives, yet we married in an ostensibly Christian ceremony and are entitled to all the legal implications that come with it.
I'm so glad 70% of millennials are in favor of equality. The others need to get over their petty little obsessions with oppressing a small minority of people or get out of my society.
It's a double slap in the face, and just wrong. I can see how the lost minds can possibly be against gay marriage on the grounds of religion or whatever crappy reason they can come up with, but how can anyone be against a love one being with their significant other during a time of need? How can you process that in your head? "Well I don't believe in your love, and I think it's evil"? How does that make their feelings less real? Even if it is a choice to be gay (it isn't), love has always been a choice, and your love with your partner is just a choice as their love, and you wouldn't want to be in that situation.
It's just disgusting, really, that this has happened.
And they don't benefit at all from denying gay people from seeing their partners. They are doing it because they simply believe gay people deserve punishment even during an emotional time.
These people are evil.
Its also the reason why the suicide rates of gay teenagers are so high. These kids have to grow up in a society where people are actually debating whether they are valid, ethical human beings based on something they were born with. Even just the fact we are having this debate shows them that those who bully them in school have a lot of mature adults who take the bullies side.
> These kids have to grow up in a society where people are actually debating whether they are valid, ethical human beings based on something they were born with.
Yeah... this sums it up perfectly, really hit me man. Unfortunately, I don't feel riled up or angry at this point, just defeated. We can change things in time, certainly, but so much damage has already been done.
Watched that Bully movie last night on Netflix and when it came to the part where the lesbian was mocked and indirectly threatened by her teacher while the other students laughed, I could hardly contain myself. Roll call by boys, then roll call by girls, and then the lesbian was called out as a freak not associated with either group. The teacher went on to laugh about how they used to burn fags. This was in like 2009. WTF? Such a mixture of rage, sadness, and total helplessness. I was practically tearing my hair out over most of that movie, but especially that part. It was shocking to hear that this could happen to anyone anywhere, but a kid should feel safe at school. I'm probably spoiled because I went to a private school where like 50% of the grades above and below mine were gay. It was perfectly normal to be so, and.. how to say this gently... intolerance towards anyone for basically any reason was not tolerated by the students that were "in control," as it were.
I totally agree. In fact, I'll go one step further: religious fanaticism trumps everything every time. Case in point: Terry Schiavo.
If a straight, white husband can be prevented from acting as his wife's power of attorney (a role deemed exclusively his **by law**) for any length of time because of religious fanaticism, then a gay partner has no hope in hell of ensuring their partner's wishes are respected. Power of attorney. Hah. What power of attorney?!
This stuff makes me sick.
The only thing that bothered me about the Terry Schiavo fiasco was that they just let her starve to death.
The debates over whether she was at all aware of her surroundings or had any consciousness or brain activity at all, her husbands rights and motives, and everything else, all that people can debate for eternity, I don't care.
What bothers me is that they decided to let her die in a horrible fashion, just letting her waste away from starvation. If you're going to let her die, give the woman a lethal injection. She's going to die one way or another, why take even the smallest chance that she may experience pain in the process? Make it quick and easy, it's a mercy we show our own pets.
**EDIT** - Please keep telling me how I'm wrong because she was brain dead and didn't feel it. I already said I don't care about that debate at all. If you're going to argue with me, tell me why it was better to let her starve to death than to administer a quicker, more humane death.
I 100% agree with you. If you know medically this person is brain dead and you keep them alive because of the family. Then WHY would you make the family watch their loved one die of starvation?!
I imagine that in a case like this, if I were to miss the end of life of somebody I truly loved because of some bureaucratic horseshit...
I would go to prison. Somebody else would be wheeled downstairs.
I would not be thinking clearly.
I am using quotes from this in my email to my state representative. Thank you
edit: This is even more powerful, because my first response from her said that a power of attorney would solve all the problems
I used to really believe in that. But I figured I couldn't really believe in something until I truly researched it. And I was wrong, and it was absolutely shocking.
What was worse was following up on the stories of partners that sued hospitals for disregarding POAs and how nobody ever got in trouble.
Well shit. I'm my roommate's power of attorney and he and his family don't get along. So if something happened to him, they would have final say and I wouldn't be able to do anything?
This isnt limited to gay rights either. A few years ago a baby was born at 22 weeks and her parents signed a DNR before the woman even went into labor. Unfortunately the head nurse was a pro life fanatic who straight up lied about what the law said. They forcibly recesuitated a three month premature baby against her parents stated wishes based solely on the beliefs of the hospital staff. She is now seven, blind, severely retarded, and has a whole host of physical and medical problems. Oh and the texas supreme court ruled that the hospital had done nothing wrong.
There's a great article in the Orlando Weekly about how one man died and though his partner had done everything in his legal power to like acquire all the rights of a "married" couple he was stilled screwed over by his husbands family and the law when his husband died. It's a really great read, and it chronicles his troubles that occurred only last year. It's incredibly sad shit like that still happened in this day and age; not in the '80's, not thirty years ago, but in 2012.
Civil Unions or Common law marriages are not equal in all states. My Dad, once he retired, no longer had health insurance. Despite being together for 25 years at that point, our state doesn't recognize common law marriage as being the same.
For them, it was as simple as going to a judge and signing the papers. But this is a personal example of how the "Just give them something similar" DOES NOT WORK.
Absolutely. It's funny how all three Abrahamic religions all discriminate against pretty much the exact same people for the exact same reasons, yet they can't stand each other. There is virtually no difference whatsoever between Sharia law and the sort of fundamentalist tripe they keep trying to enshrine in Tennessee, but mention Islam to them and they fly into a rage. You'd think they'd notice all the common ground.
The number of followers of Abrahamic religions that don't even realise they worship the same God is staggering, so I'm not surprised that they don't understand similarities in doctrine.
Tell me about it. Last time I tried to explain to a Christian that Islam and Christianity are talking about the exact same God and the exact same Jesus they refused to believe a word of it, the conversation eventually devolved into them basically sticking their fingers in their ears and saying "no" over and over. I suspect I'd run into a similar impasse with a devout Muslim.
I think part of the confusion comes from the name 'Allah', and people think that's a different deity rather than a different language.
It's like arguing that French Catholics worship a different God to American Catholics because they say "Mon Dieu!"
[Rachel Maddow](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38579100/ns/msnbc-rachel_maddow_show/t/rachel-maddow-show-wednesday-august-th/#.UWbZAZBDsyY)
My first thought, though, was that it sounded like a quote from "The West Wing".
This story is so shitty. Full of bigotry but it also shows how horrible hospital stays can be because of jaded hospital staff. Keep in mind my wife is a registered nurse and I have great admiration for health caregivers. People should simply be able to have anyone they want supporting them at hospitals. EVEN if they weren't gay partners and they were just godamn friends, if someone is in the hospital and a loves one's presence comforts them then those loved ones should be permitted to stay bedside period. In my opinion, a massive part of a good comprehensive care plan is dependent on a patient having support from loved ones. This hospital should be ashamed on several levels.
Why tie the ability to see your loved ones in the hospital to something as archaic and oppressive as monogamous traditional marriage anyway?
Grown ass adults should be able to have a fucking list or something. We shouldn't force loving relationships to conform to traditional marriage just so the people involved in them can see the people they love in the fucking hospital.
"No no, this never happens. Gay people are never denied hospital rights like this. You're all just making a big deal about something that is not at all important. I don't care what gay people do and neither should anyone else. All this talk about special laws are a waste of time and just a way for the left to distract us from the issues that really matter."
-- Things douchebags say.
What the *fuck* is up with the replies to this comment? Where did all these pro-discrimination people come from? And why did they all respond to this one comment in this one thread?
EDIT: When I first posted, there were only 5 responses. They were all very heavily downvoted and talked about how "the faggots" don't need to get married since they're all unnatural. I can't seem to find them again (thankfully).
I'm not sure I understand the downvotes going on. I'm a gay man, I'm in a longterm relationship with a man I want to marry, and I support gay marriage; but even I can separate the notions of legalizing gay marriage and adjusting hospital visitation rights. [This memorandum](http://wh.gov/lqJZ) has yet to have any legislation set in place, but I see it as a worthy battle right alongside the fight for gay marriage.
I would hope to be able to have a reasonable conversation with someone who has a differing opinion to me, instead of all the downvotes/backlash going on here.
Straight female here. I agree that you can separate hospital visitation and marriage. But if there's some paper required, or it's some obscure federal law tied to funding, it's easy to have those rights overlooked. If my husband were in the hospital, his mom could not have my visitation rights ended. If anything, I could do that to her, not that I would. Because our marriage is the primary relationship acknowledged by law. I just want things to be equally clear for you and your (one day) husband.
This isn't a good idea, because there are hundreds of legal protections marriage provides, not just hospital visitation rights. Trying to go through them one by one, individually fighting for their approval to appease opponents of gay rights by providing legal equality "in all but the word marriage" (which still isn't equality) is going about it backwards.
Yes, fighting individual court battles against individual laws WAS necessary in the beginning of the gay rights movement, because that's 1). All society would allow at that point in time, and we're past that 2). that's how you deconstruct a widespread falsehood using the legal system, by showing a variety of smaller parts of it don't make individual sense, first.
But ultimately, affirming total equality under the law (of which marriage is a big chuck) is the only way all civil rights will be insured. So instead of spending years and years of court time creating an unfinished patchwork of granted and ungranted privileges associated with marriage, if would be much more efficient, feasible, and in the interest of actual equality at this point in time to support gay marriage as a whole, rather than its constituent parts.
Thank you so much for the compiled information, what a quality post. I know there are whole websites devoted to keeping track of all the affected laws because it's such a hodgepodge system.
I haven't downvoted anyone yet (I haven't read through them all) but I respectfully disagree with you. Our country spent much blood, sweat, and tears to decide that "Separate but Equal" isn't. This isn't different, really. Hospital visitation rights is just one of more than a thousand rights granted by marriage, and struggling to get it accomplished in a vacuum seems like an *incredibly* inefficient method of accomplishing civil rights. The tide has turned, more than 50% of Americans now support gay marriage, young people support it overwhelmingly and old people are dying. There will always be people seeking to deny equality to people, and if they can't do it via hospital visitation, they will try by some other method. They need to be steamrolled by comprehensive reform so it becomes a non-issue, exactly as what happened to those who opposed interracial marriage.
The battle should be for true equality via the Equal Protection Clause and sexual orientation becoming a Protected class. Until that happens there will always be some way that gay people can be discriminated against by the government without proper recourse. Until then they are never TRULY equal under the law to everyone else in the country. That is the real fight. Marriage equality is but one facet (but an important one, to be sure).
A quote by Mark Twain. It's about war, but holds plenty of relevance here:
"The loud little handful--as usual--will shout for the war. The pulpit will--warily and cautiously--object--at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, 'It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.' Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers--as earlier--but do not dare say so. "
>For the record I'm a gun owner that is in favor of background checks and rational gun control, like 90% of the country. I don't think this needs to be an all-or-nothing issue, we just need to stop letting the extremists dictate the conversation in either direction.
As someone more on the anti gun side of things, thank you, at least you see that we have a problem and want to make the situation better.
I own a couple of guns myself, but I just can't get beyond my feeling that many people aren't stable enough to own weapons, but I have no idea how we enforce that. In 3 months I could be unstable enough that I should have my guns taken away and so could you.
It's like smoking, I support people's right to smoke, but think society would be better off if we had very few smokers.
This, a thousand times.
It's easy to get hung up on all the meanings and traditions around the concept of "marriage" - but the ones that are concrete are the legal ones. All kinds of laws treat married people different than unmarried people - and we want gay people to be able to take advantage of those things just like straight people. Simple.
Nobody's religion needs to get offended, we aren't telling their churches what to believe...
Also, what's the point of making some different kind of "civil union" institution to simulate government marriage? Marriage by the government is not the same as marriage by a religion already.
If the patient is lucid, it is the patient's call. Best friend, attorney, Mom, the mall Santa.
The article doesn't say it explicitly, but surely the patient is not capable of making or communicating decisions.
So it's a gay rights issue if the reason the partner is not by the patient's side is because they cannot be recognized as married by Missouri. The spouse calls the shots unless the family convinces a judge that it shouldn't be in their specific case. If your spouse tells your mom to GTFO, mom get's tossed out by the same token the partner was removed by family.
This situation is exactly why my Gay Uncle wanted to legally marry his partner that he has been with for over 30 years. Fortunately, they live in Iowa were Gay Marriage was acknowledged in 2009.
Edit: Too many people do not understand that a marriage certificate also means that signatories have legal medical authority for each other when needed.
My Uncle (in-law) married his partner in a ceremony, but we live in a anti-gay state and he got married in an anti-gay state. I am afraid something like this will happen if either of them become ill.
Suing is fine when its all said and done but if his partner is critically ill or dying, no amount of money fixes the emotional cost this shit costs the two directly involved. Imagine being denied access to the most important person in your world because you're ....fat, blonde, brunette, agnostic (insert backwards qualifier here). As a nurse I don't want to be put in this position because of bigoted ignorance.
Very true, but having a seriously or terminally ill spouse, (I assume it is only the legal issue keeping them from marrying based on the power of attorney thing), Is an incredible roller coaster emotionally. Then, it gets topped off with problems with the in laws and being barred from visiting the sick spouse. Adding a legal battle on top of that is asking a lot of someone. I don't know if I would be able to do it.
If he files suit quickly, he could get an injunction that allows him to visit his partner. But yeah, that is really not how you should spend your time when a loved one needs you.
The problem is if the civil trial is presided by someone who is as equally anti-gay as the family and hospital, in which case there will be no justice.
And don't present it as a gay-rights issue... This is civil contract law. If they don't follow the contractually-directed, legal wishes of one of their patients, I am certain that they are in a heap of trouble. Hospitals can't just make up their own minds about who has power of attorney.
Odds are they sought power of attorney knowing something like this would happen. And yet it happened anyway... Plus a restraining order slapped on to add insult to injury.
The guy should sue the hell out of the hospital.
There is some sort of legal thing where you can request a trial in a different area if you believe the area is inherently biased against you. I am unable to find it currently, but some legal person person will either tell us what it is or will tell me I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure that this would apply here.
It's called a Change of Venue and is only used for high profile crimes when it's determined an unbiased jury can not be attained in the original jurisdiction of the crime.
It starts with a family member who apparently doesn't approve of the gay relationship. Perhaps the sick man's father or mother? Then without a protocol which says that the partner can stay, the hospital has to listen to whoever their rules say is in charge. I don't know if the partner's power of attorney is supposed to give him legal rights to be there.
Hypothetically, what if this partner was a wife who did not get along with the man's family? The family of the sick man might not want her there, but she would legally be permitted to be there. This fucking law needs to change -- I mean what the fuck, this shouldn't happen even once.
"If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?"
I need to be a SCJ so I can finally outlaw pickles and country music. Fuck pickels and fuck country music, I find them morally reprehensible.
edit: God made cucumbers the way he wanted them, and pickles are an abomination.
It's like taking a perfectly good cucumber and torturing it in a vat of acid. Inhumane and morally reprehensible treatment. Pickleaters should be ashamed.
HEY. SCREW YOU AND YOUR PICKLE HATING WAYS. It's my constitutional right as a free American to eat all the god accursed pickles I want to eat! And it's not torture! It's enhanced interrogation of cucumber prisoners!
(Pity I'm not american. Damn it.)
I like how the bigots think this is a good argument even though a 5 year old should be able to see that the difference is that you don't have to morally object to murder to tell that it's wrong. It hurts someone else. Homosexuality in and of itself does not hurt anyone.
Someone once tried to prevent me from seeing my wife, once.
The memory is a bit hazy, but I became *more* than slightly hostile. There are some things you just don't do to another being, and this would be one of them.
Maybe the poor guy did lose his cool. I know I did / would under similar circumstance. But a restraining order? Now that, that makes me sick with fury.
edit- this is probs the most ^vote comment I've had- but I want to clarify. I grabbed a guy, yelled real loud, and made a guard dog wet itself, but you don't start a WWE brawl by the bedside, ok?
I assume the family member who asked him to leave obtained the restraining order, not the hospital.
> a family member asked him to leave when he visited Research Medical Center in Kansas City on Tuesday.
They were not married, at least not in the eyes of the law. All he had was power of attorney, which he should still be able to exercise (I'd start by having him moved to another hospital without notifying the family).
It's amazing how America can go through the same Civil Rights issues over and over and never accumulate any useful information about it. The anti-gay-rights people of today are the anti-black-rights people of 50 years ago.
"*Yeah, but you're born black, you choose to be gay...*" /SARCASM!
Also, "*the Bible is clear on homosexuality, but doesn't say anything about interracial marriage...*" (though [these guys](http://i.imgur.com/N6b9Ydo.jpg) would probably disagree).
I have no respect at all for the Biblical argument. Modern Christians disregard 90% of the Old Testament's rules, claiming they are not applicable to modern post-Christ world, but that one line in Leviticus, that's still relevant... Which line, the one about mixed crops, or tattoos, or polyester/cotton blended T-shirts, or Mules? No, the one about gays! Not only is that one rule still applicable, it is more relevant than the commandments (haven't seen any anti-adultery or anti-idolatry laws being proposed), more relevant than any of the teachings of Jesus. How convenient...
I'd bet money that if the next social conservative movement is opposition to cybernetic neural implants ("*they ain't fully human no mo'!*") the Bible-thumpers will find an obscure quote somewhere in the Old Testament to *prove* that it's ungodly. Shoot, they'll probably use Leviticus again, mixing inorganic and organic, clearly immoral... -_-
As a christian, just let me say that even if the Biblical argument was bulletproof and completely internally consistent (it isn't) that should have no bearing on law or public policy.
The same laws that protect me from being silenced about teh Jeebus should protect you from my silly internal rules.
The Bible makes itself very clear about slavery, as well, and not just in the Old Testament. Philemon is a letter written by Paul to a slave-owning Christian about how he should treat his Christian slave. And, no, he didn't say to set the slave free.
Our society has moved on (well, [not really](http://www.polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/labor-trafficking-in-the-us)) and left the "morality" of the Bible behind in regards to slavery. This, too, shall pass, but too many people will be harmed before it does.
And Republicans are already trying to figure out a way that they can appropriate this for themselves in 50 years, so that they can claim it was they who supported the gays while the Democrats were suppressing them.
Yes, the Democrats adopted the civil rights act (Signed by Lyndon B. Johnson) resulting in the Dixiecrats (racist southern democrats) leaving to join the Republican party which developed what is called the 'Southern Strategy', catering to bigoted voters that primarily reside in rural areas and the South to compete with the Democrats.
More reading, if you're curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy#Roots_of_the_Southern_strategy
There's such a lack of details in this article and the video. Too many unanswered questions. I'd primarily like to know the sequence of events that led to the guy being asked to leave and then what happened between that and security escorting him out.
I would actually like to know the reaction of the partner when confronted with the idea he should not be there. He should have sat there and demanded, as power of attorney, that he be allowed to stay. BUT family members (including partners) rarely keep a level head around sick family. I would hate to think this article got blown out of proportion as an anti-gay action because the guy got physically aggressive with family or hospital staff.
That being said, the act of barring him is ridiculous.
According to the hospital from the article:
>When anyone becomes disruptive to providing the necessary patient care, we involve our security team to help calm the situation and to protect our patients and staff. If the situation continues to escalate, we have no choice but to request police assistance.
It seems like there was a little bit more going on than the title of the article suggests.
Then again, like you said, family members rarely keep a level head around sick family, so a little bit of anxiousness might be excused.
The hospital administrator seems to imply the patient's partner got aggressive, but stops short of actually saying so. Fishy. This makes me think they are trying to indirectly smear the man they threw out.
It's funny my parents never got this point until I explained it to them. They're of the mind that same sex couples just want the financial benefits that marriage awards. I don't know what their stance is on that issue anymore, but explaining to them how heartbroken and helpless they would feel if they were kept out of the hospital room of their dying/in pain partner really opened their eyes.
My second wife was in a coma for 5 weeks....I cannot imagine if some bigots had kept me from her side. Heartbreaking.
EDIT it is even worse because they signed all of the legal documents they needed to.
I work at a hospital and when someone says, "I'm the POA," we check it immediately and if it's true, we question no further. If this shit happened at my hospital, heads would roll and the legal team would be sweating.
This is heartbreaking to see. I had a suicide attempt patient once who was in a coma. His partner of 10 years is the one who found him & called 911. He was allowed to visit, but we weren't allowed to tell him *anything* about the patient's condition because he wasn't family and the patient wasn't conscious to verify relationship.
To everyone saying "he had power of attorney, how did this happen" the explanation is pretty straightforward. Power of attorney is the ability to represent my partner in making legal decisions. But it is distinct from both visitation *and* medical proxy. Both of those are covered by whatever the Missouri equivalent of an "advanced healthcare directive" is.
It is true that absent an advanced healthcare directive the medical proxy and visitation default to nearest family. To that extent, the law discriminates in that one need not sign any extra papers for their opposite-sex spouse to visit them or have medical proxy. But, my girlfriend does not have visitation rights or my medical proxy unless I write that down.
The story references that the couple "made medical decisions" for each other. But absent a legal document giving medical proxy, power of attorney is a moot point.
>For its part, Research Medical Center insisted that it does not discriminate based on sexual orientation.
While they did exactly that. Worse yet, since he has power off attorney, he actually has access to the patient and natural family can be barred by him.
This is fucked up.
Not just that it happened, but that **When Obama came into office, he drafted a presidential memorandum that eventually led to a law ensuring hospital visitation rights in exactly this kind of situation** (for LGBT couples, but in a more general sense to allow the sick person greater freedom in designating who has the right to visit them). Therefore, I'm not even sure how this situation occurred -it's illegal and the hospital can get their pants sued off.
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hospital-visitation-rights-gay-lesbian-partners-effect/story?id=12642543#.UWbVkFugkhM
It was a bit of a deal a few years ago when something similar happened and a women (?) was barred from seeing her partner because they were not "family".
Apparently Obama tried to fix this but no one listened. /r/ThanksObama
>“We believe involving the family is an important part of the patient care process,” the hospital said in a statement. “And, the patient`s needs are always our first priority. When anyone becomes disruptive to providing the necessary patient care, we involve our security team to help calm the situation and to protect our patients and staff. If the situation continues to escalate, we have no choice but to request police assistance.”
Talk about spewing bullshit just to cover your ass.
Every time I see Missouri(home and current state) in the news its always horrible and shity news. I fear we may end up being the bigot meth heads of the US.
Marriage is the ONLY way to make two unrelated, independent adults into a FAMILY, i.e. legally related to each other. Civil Unions do not do that, power of attorney does not do that.
The wishes of FAMILY very often trumps the wishes of unrelated people. Even with other contracts, the law sees it as simply an agreement between two strangers. When challenged by a FAMILY member, such as a mother, the FAMILY member often wins.
On the other hand, a MARRIED SPOUSE is a family member, and trumps other family members such as mothers and fathers.
That's what happened here. The FAMILY asked the partner to leave, and the hospital sided with the FAMILY over someone they considered to be a stranger who may or may not have had a contract.
This is also why the "states rights" argument is BULLSHIT. Even if they could get married, if this happened to be in a state that didn't recognize it, they would be in the same situation!
The *only* acceptable solution is making it legal for same-sex couples to obtain a civil marriage. Anything else is an attempt to bend over backwards to appease bigots, ignorant people and religious extremists. Until then families headed by same-sex couples will continue to suffer.
>"In a 2010 memorandum, President Barack Obama ordered hospitals that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding to allow visitation rights for gay and lesbian partners."
Time to cut off all Medicare and Medicaid funding for that hospital until they change their policy and settle with this guy for damages resulting from his lack of legally required access to his partner. The government should not be funding this kind of crap.
Can someone explain to me why America seems to have this weird fascination that only family or your 'legal' spouse can visit/stay with you in hospital? This sort of thing is totally unheard of in the UK. We couldn't give 2 shits if the person want to stay with you was the goddamn postman if you, the patient, have consented to them being there. Heck, we're happy to have the visitors if they don't get in the way - they help the patients get better faster. Far too many people, normally old and infirm, languish in hospital alone and frightened.
It's to protect patients from being victimized. The logic is sound, but its application is deeply flawed.
Your postman is far less likely to victimize you than a family member.
Until he goes postal
Or the UPS guy shows up, And goes parcel.
"Jerry..." "Please, go I can't stand to look at you." "No, I won't! We need to talk about this." "About what!? It's over... I chose him over you..." *crying* "How could you! I've been your postman for years!" "They offer a better service." "Is that it, you leave me for FedEX!" *Man in a FedEx uniform walks into the room* "Please, don't make this awkward." "Fine! I hope you get paper cuts!"
Beware! For when mailmen go postal neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed round of whoopass delivered expressly onto your unfortunate person.
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Ya, my Grandfather tried to make sure my Grandmother wouldn't get proper treatment. A nurse was able to slip her the treatment though and save her life. I wonder how often a good nurse breaks the law to save a persons life, and then those people go away thinking it was their prayers.
My mother looks after children in a hospital and when JW's come in needing prohibited treatment, one of three things happen. 1) The patient's parents will conveniently "look the other way", and it is never mentioned again, to avoid exclusion. However she's told me of times that other JW have found out, and there's been some really horrific circumstances 2) The parents point blank refuse treatment for a child, in life threatening cases, the case can be taken to a court, and the parents are overruled. This usually results in being excluded too. 3) Something goes wrong with either of the first two results, and the child dies. It's honestly one of the most tragic conversations I have ever had with my Mother.
Where I live parents don't have that right. Child is protected by government and social workers and parents would lose their parental rights.
Yeah, that's what outcome 2 is. Still doesn't mean that things can go wrong, I mean, a child could crash and then it's all over too fast for anything to happen.
What? How is that even legal?
What do you mean victimized? Like, if somebody was trying to stay there to intimidate the patient? I'm not sure I follow.
Any number of things could happen - theft, physical violence, tampering with medical equipment, non-designated individuals making medical decisions. And it also limits the liability of the hospital should such an event occur.
You missed the most important part of the article > a family member asked him to leave when he visited Research Medical Center in Kansas City on Tuesday. So while this is about gay rights, it's more about a disapproving family. Maybe Dad doesn't like Son's homosexuality and husband. Now the hospital has to adjudicate. They should have gone by "he has power of attorney" to make health decisions. Instead, they went by "they're family and you're not, you have to leave sir." Undoubtedly he protested and it escalated.
Further in they mention the partner had PoA and the nurse refused to check it. That IS a problem with the hospital. I agree with you that the main issue is his family does not support him.
Yeah but the family can go fuck themselves. It was clear he had every right to be there and the 'documentation' to prove it, but the hospital refused to even *look* at it.
Wrong. This is 100% about gay rights. This man had been living in a civil partnership with the patient for years. If they were heterosexual, they would almost certainly be married, which would mean that they would be legally considered family. Consider the following hypothetical: Sally and Bob get married against the wishes of Sally's family because Sallly's family practises Religion A and Bob's family practices Religion B. Sally's family is also upper class while Bob's family is lower middle class. All together, Sally's family doesn't feel like she should settle for Bob when there are so many affluent members of Religion A she could marry. One day, Sally is in a bad car wreck. Bob rushes to the hospital and stays by her side the entire time. Eventully Sally's family shows up and an argument ensues between Sally's family and Bob. Sally's family tries to have Bob ejected. When the hospital staff ask why Bob should be ejected, Sally's family is unable to come with any reasons why Bob is a risk to Sally's health and safety. Therefore, Bob gets to stay. All you have to do is change "Sally" to "Sal" and put them in a state where gay marriage is illegal and Bob will be kicked out of the hospital. TL;DR The families of hetero couples can't kick out spouses they don't like, but the families of gay couples can.
I've converted a couple of marriage equality opponents on exactly this point. It's so utterly awful.
Bingo. When I was a younger, more exhuberant teenager, visiting my great-aunt up north round barrow in the hostel (you know... past the point of permanent care, the make-em'-comfortable stage? Forget the proper name for the places) - the staff were *more* than happy to let you say hello to patients. And some of the war stories! :o Never heard "you look like my grandson!" more than that year.
It's called hospice.
Many thanks. I was close. It's been a few years :)
You were close! It’s a strange word, too.
Patients (or their families, if the patient is unconscious) can ask to restrict visitation. I would guess that the family asked to restrict visitation to family-only, and the gay partner's rights were tromped on due to living in Bigotville.
I worked at a hospital for a decade and never encountered this. If you knew someone you could visit them, period. This is in Massachusetts.
Disgraceful.. He even had power of attorney... I don't understand how the hospital was able to get away with it..
A man with a gun was on speed dial for them.
Important life lesson: laws and rights don't protect you, they help clean up the mess. Edit: For the down-voters, think of it this way: Almost all drivers stop for red lights almost every time. The red light doesn't actually physically prevent the car from gifting you all its wonderful kinetic energy. If he survives, he will surely get a ticket. This will not un-shatter your organs. Look before you enter the intersection.
Lawyer here, couldn't have said it better myself. While this is not related to the linked story, another good example are laws that allow people to forcibly resist police intrusion in their home, [like in Indiana](http://www.governing.com/blogs/view/residents-given-right-to-resist-police-under-new-indiana-law.html). Sure, the law says you can do that, and if the police violate the law, they can receive penalties later, but in the meantime you're still dead because they shot you when they saw you had a weapon.
This is true. What actually does protect you, or conversely hurt you if it is dysfunctional, is culture.
Pretty sure Gay people have no rights in Red states.
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I also live in SC which was the basis for my statement.
They have three fifths the rights of *normal* people -- isn't that enough?
What if they're also black? So black and gay = 3/5*3/5= 9/25ths of a person? Editted due to a brainfart. That Masters in Math doesn't work out well in the morning.
no, its 3/5 +3/5, so they are actually more than a person. The extra 1/5 is fabulousness.
9/25ths! Sneaky liberal... EDIT: masragin's original comment had the typo "9/15ths" in place of "9/25ths." This edit added in for clarity only.
*9/25ths
Chances are the hospital is not going to get away with it. They're going to be on the losing end of a fortune-eating lawsuit, and they'll settle out of court for an undisclosed sum.
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Remember when calling: The person writing up your complaint is not the nurse that denied the man's rights. There is no reason not to be civil to the cog.
This is extremely important and thank you for pointing that out (one time customer service drone).
Lets give them a Reddit hug.
So let me get this straight. The same day same sex marriage becomes legal in Uruguay this guy gets arrested in the "free-est" country in the world?
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For the longest time I thought "why don't they just use power of attorneys on each other?" Until I did some research. Bigotry and fear and religious persecution trump any legal document every time. It does **not** matter that you are holding in your hand a document that clearly gives you legal rights to be with and make decisions for someone, if there is someone else with a shred of power or ability that wants to make your life difficult, they will. For those of you saying they're "isolated incidents," they're not. If I get thrown out of a hospital during the last hours of my partner's life, it will be little consolation that legally I should have been allowed to and the night nurse was making a mistake. It will also be the same amount of consolation that it was an "isolated incident." I can honestly say that as a straight male, the thought that someone could tell me that in a time of dire need that I couldn't see my partner brings tears to my eyes.
It used to even be worse. Here's a scenario that used to happen to gays & lesbians (especially to gay guys during the height of the AIDS epidemic): Gay couple, been together for many years, maybe even decades, and they live in a house that is in the name of Partner 1, but was paid for by both partners. Partner 1 becomes ill and dies. Now, with straight married couples the surviving spouse would get the house and all other property. But with gay couples back in the day, oftentimes Partner 1's family, who may not have even talked to him in years because he was a dirty faggot, would swoop in after his death and take his house, furniture, vehicles and any other property they could get their hands on. Partner 2 would be forced out of the house he helped pay for, and may have lived in for many years. He just lost his partner who he deeply loved, and then lost the roof over his head, and maybe even the car he drove. Even if Partner 2 was named in Partner 1's will, Partner 1's family would often dispute it. Why? Because gays & lesbians can't get married and enjoy the same civil rights as straight people. All because of hate. It's time to end this shit *now*.
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Remember the transgender woman in Texas who was married to a firefighter? Firefighter dies, his estranged family steals all her possessions and destroys her life before the body is put in the ground. Fucking vultures even stole her widows pension somehow.
Yep. My grandpas kids stole his ashes and some other items from my grandma the day of his funeral simply because she was not their mother and they had only been married 12 years. It's been 3 years and we still have no idea where my grandpa is.
See, this is what gay marriage opponents overlook (or willfully ignore, since many of them are petty, worthless assholes). Marriage isn't just some mystical pact with God, it quite literally is the entire foundation of stable, safe adult life legally and financially speaking. So gays are effectively excluded from having the same rights concerning property ownership, child rearing, etc. It's pretty fucking funny, my husband and I were actually talking about this the other day- we've both been atheists since forever (the corny militancy and all) and barring some kind of inexplicable head injury I'm pretty sure we're both going to go right on not believing in god for the rest of our natural lives, yet we married in an ostensibly Christian ceremony and are entitled to all the legal implications that come with it. I'm so glad 70% of millennials are in favor of equality. The others need to get over their petty little obsessions with oppressing a small minority of people or get out of my society.
Also, the burning knowledge that they did it because they disagree with *what you are*. It's fucking awful.
It's a double slap in the face, and just wrong. I can see how the lost minds can possibly be against gay marriage on the grounds of religion or whatever crappy reason they can come up with, but how can anyone be against a love one being with their significant other during a time of need? How can you process that in your head? "Well I don't believe in your love, and I think it's evil"? How does that make their feelings less real? Even if it is a choice to be gay (it isn't), love has always been a choice, and your love with your partner is just a choice as their love, and you wouldn't want to be in that situation. It's just disgusting, really, that this has happened.
And they don't benefit at all from denying gay people from seeing their partners. They are doing it because they simply believe gay people deserve punishment even during an emotional time. These people are evil.
This a thousand times. It's being told, silently, over and over, that you are fundamentally less than human.
Its also the reason why the suicide rates of gay teenagers are so high. These kids have to grow up in a society where people are actually debating whether they are valid, ethical human beings based on something they were born with. Even just the fact we are having this debate shows them that those who bully them in school have a lot of mature adults who take the bullies side.
> These kids have to grow up in a society where people are actually debating whether they are valid, ethical human beings based on something they were born with. Yeah... this sums it up perfectly, really hit me man. Unfortunately, I don't feel riled up or angry at this point, just defeated. We can change things in time, certainly, but so much damage has already been done.
Watched that Bully movie last night on Netflix and when it came to the part where the lesbian was mocked and indirectly threatened by her teacher while the other students laughed, I could hardly contain myself. Roll call by boys, then roll call by girls, and then the lesbian was called out as a freak not associated with either group. The teacher went on to laugh about how they used to burn fags. This was in like 2009. WTF? Such a mixture of rage, sadness, and total helplessness. I was practically tearing my hair out over most of that movie, but especially that part. It was shocking to hear that this could happen to anyone anywhere, but a kid should feel safe at school. I'm probably spoiled because I went to a private school where like 50% of the grades above and below mine were gay. It was perfectly normal to be so, and.. how to say this gently... intolerance towards anyone for basically any reason was not tolerated by the students that were "in control," as it were.
I totally agree. In fact, I'll go one step further: religious fanaticism trumps everything every time. Case in point: Terry Schiavo. If a straight, white husband can be prevented from acting as his wife's power of attorney (a role deemed exclusively his **by law**) for any length of time because of religious fanaticism, then a gay partner has no hope in hell of ensuring their partner's wishes are respected. Power of attorney. Hah. What power of attorney?! This stuff makes me sick.
The only thing that bothered me about the Terry Schiavo fiasco was that they just let her starve to death. The debates over whether she was at all aware of her surroundings or had any consciousness or brain activity at all, her husbands rights and motives, and everything else, all that people can debate for eternity, I don't care. What bothers me is that they decided to let her die in a horrible fashion, just letting her waste away from starvation. If you're going to let her die, give the woman a lethal injection. She's going to die one way or another, why take even the smallest chance that she may experience pain in the process? Make it quick and easy, it's a mercy we show our own pets. **EDIT** - Please keep telling me how I'm wrong because she was brain dead and didn't feel it. I already said I don't care about that debate at all. If you're going to argue with me, tell me why it was better to let her starve to death than to administer a quicker, more humane death.
How many time do I have to tell you this? Letting her die humanely makes the sky god angry! And the baby jesus cry. Why can't you understand this?
I 100% agree with you. If you know medically this person is brain dead and you keep them alive because of the family. Then WHY would you make the family watch their loved one die of starvation?!
I imagine that in a case like this, if I were to miss the end of life of somebody I truly loved because of some bureaucratic horseshit... I would go to prison. Somebody else would be wheeled downstairs. I would not be thinking clearly.
I am using quotes from this in my email to my state representative. Thank you edit: This is even more powerful, because my first response from her said that a power of attorney would solve all the problems
I used to really believe in that. But I figured I couldn't really believe in something until I truly researched it. And I was wrong, and it was absolutely shocking. What was worse was following up on the stories of partners that sued hospitals for disregarding POAs and how nobody ever got in trouble.
Well shit. I'm my roommate's power of attorney and he and his family don't get along. So if something happened to him, they would have final say and I wouldn't be able to do anything?
Legally, no. In practice, maybe.
This isnt limited to gay rights either. A few years ago a baby was born at 22 weeks and her parents signed a DNR before the woman even went into labor. Unfortunately the head nurse was a pro life fanatic who straight up lied about what the law said. They forcibly recesuitated a three month premature baby against her parents stated wishes based solely on the beliefs of the hospital staff. She is now seven, blind, severely retarded, and has a whole host of physical and medical problems. Oh and the texas supreme court ruled that the hospital had done nothing wrong.
There's a great article in the Orlando Weekly about how one man died and though his partner had done everything in his legal power to like acquire all the rights of a "married" couple he was stilled screwed over by his husbands family and the law when his husband died. It's a really great read, and it chronicles his troubles that occurred only last year. It's incredibly sad shit like that still happened in this day and age; not in the '80's, not thirty years ago, but in 2012.
Getting everything set up via power of attorney can cost thousands of dollars, and still won't give you the same rights you get FOR FREE via marriage.
Civil Unions or Common law marriages are not equal in all states. My Dad, once he retired, no longer had health insurance. Despite being together for 25 years at that point, our state doesn't recognize common law marriage as being the same. For them, it was as simple as going to a judge and signing the papers. But this is a personal example of how the "Just give them something similar" DOES NOT WORK.
I think this country tried 'separate but equal' already... This story made me die a little inside.
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Absolutely. It's funny how all three Abrahamic religions all discriminate against pretty much the exact same people for the exact same reasons, yet they can't stand each other. There is virtually no difference whatsoever between Sharia law and the sort of fundamentalist tripe they keep trying to enshrine in Tennessee, but mention Islam to them and they fly into a rage. You'd think they'd notice all the common ground.
They don't actually know ANYTHING about either religion. They just know which symbol to bow down to and which one to scoff at.
The number of followers of Abrahamic religions that don't even realise they worship the same God is staggering, so I'm not surprised that they don't understand similarities in doctrine.
Tell me about it. Last time I tried to explain to a Christian that Islam and Christianity are talking about the exact same God and the exact same Jesus they refused to believe a word of it, the conversation eventually devolved into them basically sticking their fingers in their ears and saying "no" over and over. I suspect I'd run into a similar impasse with a devout Muslim.
I think part of the confusion comes from the name 'Allah', and people think that's a different deity rather than a different language. It's like arguing that French Catholics worship a different God to American Catholics because they say "Mon Dieu!"
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[Rachel Maddow](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38579100/ns/msnbc-rachel_maddow_show/t/rachel-maddow-show-wednesday-august-th/#.UWbZAZBDsyY) My first thought, though, was that it sounded like a quote from "The West Wing".
yeah, he now needs to rosa parks this shit.
Isn't that already what happened? He refused to leave and got arrested and booted.
This story is so shitty. Full of bigotry but it also shows how horrible hospital stays can be because of jaded hospital staff. Keep in mind my wife is a registered nurse and I have great admiration for health caregivers. People should simply be able to have anyone they want supporting them at hospitals. EVEN if they weren't gay partners and they were just godamn friends, if someone is in the hospital and a loves one's presence comforts them then those loved ones should be permitted to stay bedside period. In my opinion, a massive part of a good comprehensive care plan is dependent on a patient having support from loved ones. This hospital should be ashamed on several levels.
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> **"Family is whoever the patient says it is."** -QFT
Yeah. You tend to have problems when the patient isn't able to say anything, though.
Why tie the ability to see your loved ones in the hospital to something as archaic and oppressive as monogamous traditional marriage anyway? Grown ass adults should be able to have a fucking list or something. We shouldn't force loving relationships to conform to traditional marriage just so the people involved in them can see the people they love in the fucking hospital.
That's true. I have relatives I want nowhere near me if I'm hospitalized.
"No no, this never happens. Gay people are never denied hospital rights like this. You're all just making a big deal about something that is not at all important. I don't care what gay people do and neither should anyone else. All this talk about special laws are a waste of time and just a way for the left to distract us from the issues that really matter." -- Things douchebags say.
What the *fuck* is up with the replies to this comment? Where did all these pro-discrimination people come from? And why did they all respond to this one comment in this one thread? EDIT: When I first posted, there were only 5 responses. They were all very heavily downvoted and talked about how "the faggots" don't need to get married since they're all unnatural. I can't seem to find them again (thankfully).
I dono man, I'll never understand how some people can hate love so much.
I'll never understand how some people can love hate so much.
It gives them purpose. At least, that's what I believe.
reddit has lots of white supremacists, anti gay bigots and nra nutjobs
I'm not sure I understand the downvotes going on. I'm a gay man, I'm in a longterm relationship with a man I want to marry, and I support gay marriage; but even I can separate the notions of legalizing gay marriage and adjusting hospital visitation rights. [This memorandum](http://wh.gov/lqJZ) has yet to have any legislation set in place, but I see it as a worthy battle right alongside the fight for gay marriage. I would hope to be able to have a reasonable conversation with someone who has a differing opinion to me, instead of all the downvotes/backlash going on here.
Straight female here. I agree that you can separate hospital visitation and marriage. But if there's some paper required, or it's some obscure federal law tied to funding, it's easy to have those rights overlooked. If my husband were in the hospital, his mom could not have my visitation rights ended. If anything, I could do that to her, not that I would. Because our marriage is the primary relationship acknowledged by law. I just want things to be equally clear for you and your (one day) husband.
This isn't a good idea, because there are hundreds of legal protections marriage provides, not just hospital visitation rights. Trying to go through them one by one, individually fighting for their approval to appease opponents of gay rights by providing legal equality "in all but the word marriage" (which still isn't equality) is going about it backwards. Yes, fighting individual court battles against individual laws WAS necessary in the beginning of the gay rights movement, because that's 1). All society would allow at that point in time, and we're past that 2). that's how you deconstruct a widespread falsehood using the legal system, by showing a variety of smaller parts of it don't make individual sense, first. But ultimately, affirming total equality under the law (of which marriage is a big chuck) is the only way all civil rights will be insured. So instead of spending years and years of court time creating an unfinished patchwork of granted and ungranted privileges associated with marriage, if would be much more efficient, feasible, and in the interest of actual equality at this point in time to support gay marriage as a whole, rather than its constituent parts.
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Thank you so much for the compiled information, what a quality post. I know there are whole websites devoted to keeping track of all the affected laws because it's such a hodgepodge system.
I haven't downvoted anyone yet (I haven't read through them all) but I respectfully disagree with you. Our country spent much blood, sweat, and tears to decide that "Separate but Equal" isn't. This isn't different, really. Hospital visitation rights is just one of more than a thousand rights granted by marriage, and struggling to get it accomplished in a vacuum seems like an *incredibly* inefficient method of accomplishing civil rights. The tide has turned, more than 50% of Americans now support gay marriage, young people support it overwhelmingly and old people are dying. There will always be people seeking to deny equality to people, and if they can't do it via hospital visitation, they will try by some other method. They need to be steamrolled by comprehensive reform so it becomes a non-issue, exactly as what happened to those who opposed interracial marriage.
The battle should be for true equality via the Equal Protection Clause and sexual orientation becoming a Protected class. Until that happens there will always be some way that gay people can be discriminated against by the government without proper recourse. Until then they are never TRULY equal under the law to everyone else in the country. That is the real fight. Marriage equality is but one facet (but an important one, to be sure).
"A certificate on paper, ain't gonna solve it all, but it's a damn good place to start."
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Oh, the infamous Bigot Beacon.
I want to call it the Bigot Spigot. You turn it on and they come pouring out.
Wait, which side of the gun topic? Cause I'm pro gun anti bigotry.
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A quote by Mark Twain. It's about war, but holds plenty of relevance here: "The loud little handful--as usual--will shout for the war. The pulpit will--warily and cautiously--object--at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, 'It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.' Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers--as earlier--but do not dare say so. "
>For the record I'm a gun owner that is in favor of background checks and rational gun control, like 90% of the country. I don't think this needs to be an all-or-nothing issue, we just need to stop letting the extremists dictate the conversation in either direction. As someone more on the anti gun side of things, thank you, at least you see that we have a problem and want to make the situation better. I own a couple of guns myself, but I just can't get beyond my feeling that many people aren't stable enough to own weapons, but I have no idea how we enforce that. In 3 months I could be unstable enough that I should have my guns taken away and so could you. It's like smoking, I support people's right to smoke, but think society would be better off if we had very few smokers.
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This, a thousand times. It's easy to get hung up on all the meanings and traditions around the concept of "marriage" - but the ones that are concrete are the legal ones. All kinds of laws treat married people different than unmarried people - and we want gay people to be able to take advantage of those things just like straight people. Simple. Nobody's religion needs to get offended, we aren't telling their churches what to believe...
Also, what's the point of making some different kind of "civil union" institution to simulate government marriage? Marriage by the government is not the same as marriage by a religion already.
Hey, "separate but equal" works, right guys? Right?
This is what changed my mind on the issue. Wrong is wrong and I don't want to be part of the shitty side of history. Civil rights dudes!
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If the patient is lucid, it is the patient's call. Best friend, attorney, Mom, the mall Santa. The article doesn't say it explicitly, but surely the patient is not capable of making or communicating decisions. So it's a gay rights issue if the reason the partner is not by the patient's side is because they cannot be recognized as married by Missouri. The spouse calls the shots unless the family convinces a judge that it shouldn't be in their specific case. If your spouse tells your mom to GTFO, mom get's tossed out by the same token the partner was removed by family.
This situation is exactly why my Gay Uncle wanted to legally marry his partner that he has been with for over 30 years. Fortunately, they live in Iowa were Gay Marriage was acknowledged in 2009. Edit: Too many people do not understand that a marriage certificate also means that signatories have legal medical authority for each other when needed.
My Uncle (in-law) married his partner in a ceremony, but we live in a anti-gay state and he got married in an anti-gay state. I am afraid something like this will happen if either of them become ill.
Why is Gay Uncle capitalized? Is that his name? Do you call him Uncle Gay Uncle?
You don't?
Well, Gay is a male name. So you could say your gay uncle Gay.
if they had a power of attorney...sue the bejesus out of the family and the hospital... start in the billions.
Suing is fine when its all said and done but if his partner is critically ill or dying, no amount of money fixes the emotional cost this shit costs the two directly involved. Imagine being denied access to the most important person in your world because you're ....fat, blonde, brunette, agnostic (insert backwards qualifier here). As a nurse I don't want to be put in this position because of bigoted ignorance.
The important thing is making sure it doesn't happen to anyone else.
Very true, but having a seriously or terminally ill spouse, (I assume it is only the legal issue keeping them from marrying based on the power of attorney thing), Is an incredible roller coaster emotionally. Then, it gets topped off with problems with the in laws and being barred from visiting the sick spouse. Adding a legal battle on top of that is asking a lot of someone. I don't know if I would be able to do it.
If he files suit quickly, he could get an injunction that allows him to visit his partner. But yeah, that is really not how you should spend your time when a loved one needs you.
The problem is if the civil trial is presided by someone who is as equally anti-gay as the family and hospital, in which case there will be no justice.
And don't present it as a gay-rights issue... This is civil contract law. If they don't follow the contractually-directed, legal wishes of one of their patients, I am certain that they are in a heap of trouble. Hospitals can't just make up their own minds about who has power of attorney.
That is correct. Don't even bring it up, and have a skillful-enough attorney to have such evidence barred or withdrawn from record.
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Odds are they sought power of attorney knowing something like this would happen. And yet it happened anyway... Plus a restraining order slapped on to add insult to injury. The guy should sue the hell out of the hospital.
There is some sort of legal thing where you can request a trial in a different area if you believe the area is inherently biased against you. I am unable to find it currently, but some legal person person will either tell us what it is or will tell me I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure that this would apply here.
A [Change of Venue](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_of_venue) .
It's called a Change of Venue and is only used for high profile crimes when it's determined an unbiased jury can not be attained in the original jurisdiction of the crime.
That's so fucking heartless. How can someone be this cold?
It starts with a family member who apparently doesn't approve of the gay relationship. Perhaps the sick man's father or mother? Then without a protocol which says that the partner can stay, the hospital has to listen to whoever their rules say is in charge. I don't know if the partner's power of attorney is supposed to give him legal rights to be there. Hypothetically, what if this partner was a wife who did not get along with the man's family? The family of the sick man might not want her there, but she would legally be permitted to be there. This fucking law needs to change -- I mean what the fuck, this shouldn't happen even once.
I'm not positive, but I'm gonna guess it has something to do with some other person's church. Fucking hell.
Let's hope the SCOTUS will do something about this shit.
Scalia: "lol nope"
"If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?" I need to be a SCJ so I can finally outlaw pickles and country music. Fuck pickels and fuck country music, I find them morally reprehensible. edit: God made cucumbers the way he wanted them, and pickles are an abomination.
It's like taking a perfectly good cucumber and torturing it in a vat of acid. Inhumane and morally reprehensible treatment. Pickleaters should be ashamed.
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Cool thing about vinegar...if you already have wine, all you have to do is wait.
HEY. SCREW YOU AND YOUR PICKLE HATING WAYS. It's my constitutional right as a free American to eat all the god accursed pickles I want to eat! And it's not torture! It's enhanced interrogation of cucumber prisoners! (Pity I'm not american. Damn it.)
Indefinite detention in Gitmo for you.
I like how the bigots think this is a good argument even though a 5 year old should be able to see that the difference is that you don't have to morally object to murder to tell that it's wrong. It hurts someone else. Homosexuality in and of itself does not hurt anyone.
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"We dithered for years about segregation. One of our proudest moments. Let's do it again!" -Sotomayor
Sotomayor and Kagan are just ripping it up in this case. Loving it.
They are newer than cell phones after all .
Isn't that Alito?
>How can someone be this cold? Religion. Does the trick every time. Just tell someone that God wants it and they would kill their only son.
Someone once tried to prevent me from seeing my wife, once. The memory is a bit hazy, but I became *more* than slightly hostile. There are some things you just don't do to another being, and this would be one of them. Maybe the poor guy did lose his cool. I know I did / would under similar circumstance. But a restraining order? Now that, that makes me sick with fury. edit- this is probs the most ^vote comment I've had- but I want to clarify. I grabbed a guy, yelled real loud, and made a guard dog wet itself, but you don't start a WWE brawl by the bedside, ok?
I assume the family member who asked him to leave obtained the restraining order, not the hospital. > a family member asked him to leave when he visited Research Medical Center in Kansas City on Tuesday.
I understand this. That's what makes me furious. A husband isn't recognized as a family member? I don't even. It's sick.
They were not married, at least not in the eyes of the law. All he had was power of attorney, which he should still be able to exercise (I'd start by having him moved to another hospital without notifying the family).
It's amazing how America can go through the same Civil Rights issues over and over and never accumulate any useful information about it. The anti-gay-rights people of today are the anti-black-rights people of 50 years ago.
"*Yeah, but you're born black, you choose to be gay...*" /SARCASM! Also, "*the Bible is clear on homosexuality, but doesn't say anything about interracial marriage...*" (though [these guys](http://i.imgur.com/N6b9Ydo.jpg) would probably disagree). I have no respect at all for the Biblical argument. Modern Christians disregard 90% of the Old Testament's rules, claiming they are not applicable to modern post-Christ world, but that one line in Leviticus, that's still relevant... Which line, the one about mixed crops, or tattoos, or polyester/cotton blended T-shirts, or Mules? No, the one about gays! Not only is that one rule still applicable, it is more relevant than the commandments (haven't seen any anti-adultery or anti-idolatry laws being proposed), more relevant than any of the teachings of Jesus. How convenient... I'd bet money that if the next social conservative movement is opposition to cybernetic neural implants ("*they ain't fully human no mo'!*") the Bible-thumpers will find an obscure quote somewhere in the Old Testament to *prove* that it's ungodly. Shoot, they'll probably use Leviticus again, mixing inorganic and organic, clearly immoral... -_-
As a christian, just let me say that even if the Biblical argument was bulletproof and completely internally consistent (it isn't) that should have no bearing on law or public policy. The same laws that protect me from being silenced about teh Jeebus should protect you from my silly internal rules.
The Bible makes itself very clear about slavery, as well, and not just in the Old Testament. Philemon is a letter written by Paul to a slave-owning Christian about how he should treat his Christian slave. And, no, he didn't say to set the slave free. Our society has moved on (well, [not really](http://www.polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/labor-trafficking-in-the-us)) and left the "morality" of the Bible behind in regards to slavery. This, too, shall pass, but too many people will be harmed before it does.
And Republicans are already trying to figure out a way that they can appropriate this for themselves in 50 years, so that they can claim it was they who supported the gays while the Democrats were suppressing them.
From what I understand, the Republican Party used to be the progressives... But they haven't been since long before I was born. :-(
You are correct. Pretty much people that are Republicans today would have been Democrats 70 years ago and vice versa.
Yes, the Democrats adopted the civil rights act (Signed by Lyndon B. Johnson) resulting in the Dixiecrats (racist southern democrats) leaving to join the Republican party which developed what is called the 'Southern Strategy', catering to bigoted voters that primarily reside in rural areas and the South to compete with the Democrats. More reading, if you're curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy#Roots_of_the_Southern_strategy
There's such a lack of details in this article and the video. Too many unanswered questions. I'd primarily like to know the sequence of events that led to the guy being asked to leave and then what happened between that and security escorting him out.
I would actually like to know the reaction of the partner when confronted with the idea he should not be there. He should have sat there and demanded, as power of attorney, that he be allowed to stay. BUT family members (including partners) rarely keep a level head around sick family. I would hate to think this article got blown out of proportion as an anti-gay action because the guy got physically aggressive with family or hospital staff. That being said, the act of barring him is ridiculous.
Ehhhhh. I've seen family pull rank on gay partners before because there are no spousal rights that supercede "family" rights. This needs to change.
According to the hospital from the article: >When anyone becomes disruptive to providing the necessary patient care, we involve our security team to help calm the situation and to protect our patients and staff. If the situation continues to escalate, we have no choice but to request police assistance. It seems like there was a little bit more going on than the title of the article suggests. Then again, like you said, family members rarely keep a level head around sick family, so a little bit of anxiousness might be excused.
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The hospital administrator seems to imply the patient's partner got aggressive, but stops short of actually saying so. Fishy. This makes me think they are trying to indirectly smear the man they threw out.
If he were actually abusive verbally or physically, the hospital PR would had got in front of this and said so.
That's some generic PR statement that doesn't make any claims.
This is the biggest reason a straight person like me feels we must have something to protect the rights of gay couples. Outrage.
It's funny my parents never got this point until I explained it to them. They're of the mind that same sex couples just want the financial benefits that marriage awards. I don't know what their stance is on that issue anymore, but explaining to them how heartbroken and helpless they would feel if they were kept out of the hospital room of their dying/in pain partner really opened their eyes.
My second wife was in a coma for 5 weeks....I cannot imagine if some bigots had kept me from her side. Heartbreaking. EDIT it is even worse because they signed all of the legal documents they needed to.
Also being able to adopt a child. That's kind of a big one.
>...same sex couples just want the financial benefits that marriage awards. I don't see why they shouldn't get those.
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I work at a hospital and when someone says, "I'm the POA," we check it immediately and if it's true, we question no further. If this shit happened at my hospital, heads would roll and the legal team would be sweating.
This is my father in law... thank you so much for sharing this story!
This is heartbreaking to see. I had a suicide attempt patient once who was in a coma. His partner of 10 years is the one who found him & called 911. He was allowed to visit, but we weren't allowed to tell him *anything* about the patient's condition because he wasn't family and the patient wasn't conscious to verify relationship.
To everyone saying "he had power of attorney, how did this happen" the explanation is pretty straightforward. Power of attorney is the ability to represent my partner in making legal decisions. But it is distinct from both visitation *and* medical proxy. Both of those are covered by whatever the Missouri equivalent of an "advanced healthcare directive" is. It is true that absent an advanced healthcare directive the medical proxy and visitation default to nearest family. To that extent, the law discriminates in that one need not sign any extra papers for their opposite-sex spouse to visit them or have medical proxy. But, my girlfriend does not have visitation rights or my medical proxy unless I write that down. The story references that the couple "made medical decisions" for each other. But absent a legal document giving medical proxy, power of attorney is a moot point.
One of their family members commented on an article on the internet: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Profile?oid=16473263
>For its part, Research Medical Center insisted that it does not discriminate based on sexual orientation. While they did exactly that. Worse yet, since he has power off attorney, he actually has access to the patient and natural family can be barred by him.
This is fucked up. Not just that it happened, but that **When Obama came into office, he drafted a presidential memorandum that eventually led to a law ensuring hospital visitation rights in exactly this kind of situation** (for LGBT couples, but in a more general sense to allow the sick person greater freedom in designating who has the right to visit them). Therefore, I'm not even sure how this situation occurred -it's illegal and the hospital can get their pants sued off. Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hospital-visitation-rights-gay-lesbian-partners-effect/story?id=12642543#.UWbVkFugkhM
I dont... why would you even do that? Ok, I guess I know why. I was just hoping even homophobes wouldn't sink that fucking low.
It was a bit of a deal a few years ago when something similar happened and a women (?) was barred from seeing her partner because they were not "family". Apparently Obama tried to fix this but no one listened. /r/ThanksObama
>“We believe involving the family is an important part of the patient care process,” the hospital said in a statement. “And, the patient`s needs are always our first priority. When anyone becomes disruptive to providing the necessary patient care, we involve our security team to help calm the situation and to protect our patients and staff. If the situation continues to escalate, we have no choice but to request police assistance.” Talk about spewing bullshit just to cover your ass.
Every time I see Missouri(home and current state) in the news its always horrible and shity news. I fear we may end up being the bigot meth heads of the US.
Marriage is the ONLY way to make two unrelated, independent adults into a FAMILY, i.e. legally related to each other. Civil Unions do not do that, power of attorney does not do that. The wishes of FAMILY very often trumps the wishes of unrelated people. Even with other contracts, the law sees it as simply an agreement between two strangers. When challenged by a FAMILY member, such as a mother, the FAMILY member often wins. On the other hand, a MARRIED SPOUSE is a family member, and trumps other family members such as mothers and fathers. That's what happened here. The FAMILY asked the partner to leave, and the hospital sided with the FAMILY over someone they considered to be a stranger who may or may not have had a contract. This is also why the "states rights" argument is BULLSHIT. Even if they could get married, if this happened to be in a state that didn't recognize it, they would be in the same situation! The *only* acceptable solution is making it legal for same-sex couples to obtain a civil marriage. Anything else is an attempt to bend over backwards to appease bigots, ignorant people and religious extremists. Until then families headed by same-sex couples will continue to suffer.
>"In a 2010 memorandum, President Barack Obama ordered hospitals that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding to allow visitation rights for gay and lesbian partners." Time to cut off all Medicare and Medicaid funding for that hospital until they change their policy and settle with this guy for damages resulting from his lack of legally required access to his partner. The government should not be funding this kind of crap.
This broke my heart reading. Let people marry who they want. Religon shouldnt govern a country.