Hospital throws out gay partner...

[none2_none2]

http://gawker.com/5994390/gay-man-e...uffs-for-refusing-to-leave-sick-partners-side


Sounds like the hospital sided with the brother over the gay spouse, and now the partner has a legal restraint against seeing his partner there. It started out as a local/regional story, but making the rounds...

Here is the partner's face book page:
https://www.facebook.com/roger.gorley

Here is the Hospital's page:
https://www.facebook.com/ResearchMedicalCenter

Note: If you don't have a facebook account, you cannot see all the comments. I would just say that it is impressive that people from many places made their comments known to the hospital facebook page.

One sad comment I read was from a man in Florida: He stated that he was kicked out of a hospital's ICU where his partner was. The hospital realized too late that it was a mistake; by the time he got back to the hospital, his partner had died.

What is frustrating about this Missouri story is that the gay spouse HAS the legal durable power of attorney for is partner. They even have a civil union -- not from Missouri of course.

It is stories like this that remind you that gay marriage is important. We should have marriage rights -- and not just civil unions (marriage lite). Luckily this couple isn't dealing with a life or death issue, but partners should be allowed to be together in a hospital setting.

One last link on this hospital:

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.co...isiting-his-partner/politics/2013/04/11/64969

 

[Stella_Omega]

yep-- heartbreaking.

 

[none2_none2]

The story has an even more disgusting twist...

The story goes on that the spouse (Roger) and Roger's adult daughter (Amanda) arrived at the same time that the patient (Alllen)'s brother (Lee) arrived. Roger and Lee got into a heated discussion, and according to Amanda, Lee was causing the problem. Still the nurse took Lee's side.

The police arrived, and were very rough with Roger. Then they freaked out when he bled, so they started acting like Roger must have AIDS.

Here is the link.


http://americablog.com/2013/04/interview-daughter-gay-man-handcuffed-husbands-hospital-bed.html

I hope the nurse looses her job, and that both the hospital and police get sued. I'm ashamed of all of them.

 

[Etoile]

An update:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...sted-gay-sick-partner-hospital_n_3069481.html

Blog post by Amanda:
http://www.weareatheism.com/arrested-at-hospital-just-for-wanting-to-hold-his-partners-hand/

Note in particular the events she describes of 4/9 - he was basically admitted against his will to begin with, because his brother insisted he needed to go to the hospital, when really he just needed to rest.

 

[njlauren]

This is true even in states not quite as backward as Missouri. Here in NJ we have civil unions, which supposedly grant full rights, including the right to make medical decisions, decisions about children, you name it....and what experience has shown is that often people with civic unions have to right hospitals because they aren't married, or for any other right. I don't know when the NJ Supreme Court will revisit the decision that led to civic unions being adopted, but the fact that gays have to fight for rights that should be automatic tells the whole story about why you need marriage. I am sick of hearing from people who should know better, who are otherwise sympathetic, how it is the term marriage, how it is sacred, while refusing to look at the fact that the word marriage is so burned into law and social conditioning, that whether they consider it sacred is meaningless, that the term has so outstripped its religious meaning that it cannot be denied to same sex couples.

Unless the government totally does away with marriage as a legal right, doesn't accept marriages for benefits, and gives everyone civic unions and leaves marriage to the churches, the only fair course is to make same sex marriage legal across the board. I am only sorry that so many of the Scotus justices, specifically Sotomayor and Ginzburg, are so afraid of another Roe V Wade that they are going to chicken out with prop 8 (they are basically arguing, reading their comments in the court case, that it will happen anyway and better to be organic; the Supreme Court is going to have to decide it eventually, though, because there is no way in hell the hookworm belt and most of the midwest would ever adopt this themselves, and it is going to take a Loving style decision to change that).

 

[Bramblethorn]

This is true even in states not quite as backward as Missouri. Here in NJ we have civil unions, which supposedly grant full rights, including the right to make medical decisions, decisions about children, you name it....and what experience has shown is that often people with civic unions have to right hospitals because they aren't married, or for any other right.

Yep, "separate but equal" still ain't.

 

[njlauren]

Yep, "separate but equal" still ain't.

It is why those who say it is the term marriage are outright liars. If they were that worried about the term marriage being sacred, they would be fighting to remove it as a legal term, as they have in many countries. Let the churches marry who they want or don't want, and let the state grant civic unions to cement the legal rights. Ain't gonna happen, because by leaving marriage as a legal term people can play the dirty game, of saying they aren't against gay unions, it is the term marriage, when in reality they don't want equal rights.

 

[Missouribiguy]

Sometimes, I feel shame for living in this fucking state...

 

[stickygirl]

..... Ain't gonna happen, because by leaving marriage as a legal term people can play the dirty game, of saying they aren't against gay unions, it is the term marriage, when in reality they don't want equal rights.

that's the truth of it