If Jesus were here today...
|
December 12, 2004 |
Brendan Deiz
| Share on Facebook |
Sponsored Advertising
Comments
Posted by: jim | Dec 12, 2004 9:09:57 PM
Many of us take for granted hospital visitation rights. We think that if someone we care about — a friend, relative, spouse, child, etc. — is in the hospital, we have the “right” to visit. But in reality, these are not rights; they are privileges that can be allowed or forbidden by the patient. Or, if the patient is not available to make this decision, then blood kin are empowered to make the decision. This is where family members who do not accept the same-sex relationship can, and do, forbid access.
This is an example of where gay people have the additional burden of constructing (expensive) legal documentation if they want some of the same rights that others take for granted.
I know of a somewhat similar case where one individual, who shared a home with her partner of 29 years, was essentially put out, homeless, into the street when her partner (who legally owned the residence) died in a horrific fire that destroyed their home. The deceased’s family members refused to allow the partner to re-enter the home, claimed the insurance, sold the home, and kept the equity. The couple had not prepared a will or other legal directives, which turned out to be a HUGE mistake, but one that would have had far less severe consequences for a legally married couple.
As to the question of why anyone might expect the privileged class to understand the experience of the underclass, I will only guess that it is a combination of human frailty and sense of a lack of a venue for communication. (I do note, however, that this web site is a wonderful way to begin dialog.)
Finally, I think an equally interesting question might be “how have so many people been able to remain ignorant of the real world discrimination faced by so many of our neighbors and family members?”
Posted by: cc | Dec 12, 2004 10:37:38 PM
If anyone is in ICU, CCU, or NCU, the only people ever allowed to visit are "immediate family." When my grandfather was in CCU, I had to use a little phone in between two sets of doors and have someone at the nurse's station "buzz me in."
Additionally, if someone is unable to speak for themselves, the next of kin is the one who gets to make decisions for them if there is no binding legal document stating otherwise. Spouses are always next of kin. In a situation where a gay or lesbian is in a hospital and unable to speak for themselves, the parents, siblings, or even adult children of that person get to make the decisions for them as well as decide who may or may not visit them - if they are in one of the units I mentioned above, there are, in most hospitals, no exception to the "immediate family" rule.
It is in these situations where a person's partner could be shut out of life saving or end-of-life decisions and may not be able to visit their partner at all - even if the "immediate family" says it's OK. Imagine a situation where a person's parents are fanatically religious and their son or daughter happens to be gay and is in a coma with no hope of ever awakening. While that person's partner may know that in this situation, he would want the "plug pulled." The parents have the right to keep him on life support until the end of time and his partner has no say in the matter (which is why everyone should have a living will - but even living wills do not get to dictate who is considered "next of kin"). The parents also have the right to bar his partner (whom they, in my scenario, do not recognize or accept) from ever visiting. The partner can be completely - legally - shut out of his lifeless life.
Whether someone approves or disapproves of someone's lifestyle "choice," their life partner is their life partner and they should be afforded the same rights as a heterosexual spouse would be in the same situation.
See, I don't understand why we WOULDN'T afford these rights to people. Whether they get married or not, Heather's still going to have two mommies and daddy's still going to have a roommate. The fact that gay and lesbian couples exist is not going to change because we tell them they can't get married. So let them get married and give them the same rights as everybody else. Sadly, that's not going to happen for a long, long time. It truly is a shame.
Posted by: Anthony | Dec 13, 2004 6:02:41 AM
CC wrote:
"So let them get married and give them the same rights as everybody else. Sadly, that's not going to happen for a long, long time. It truly is a shame."
Maybe, but the difficulties in the examples above can be remedied without marriage.
Optimists might note that while the voters rejected the concept of gay marriage, they seem very open to conceding types of arrangements that would save the kind of heartache and injustice that Jim describes.
Posted by: jim | Dec 13, 2004 7:26:38 AM
Anthony,
As much as I sincerely welcome the well intended support, I respectfully note that the issue of greatest impact, in my opinion, is not the bundle of individual acts of discrimination that, yes, can sometimes be worked around. Instead it's the global sense that my family is somehow less worthy than others -- the comprehensive unequal treatment that my family is continually subjected to. All the work-arounds in the world won't overcome this -- plus it costs lots of money.
I really regret that in the recent ballot initiative campaign the practical dilemmas (visitation rights, for example) were emphasized. As real and as heartbreaking as these can be, they don't compare with the distress of living in a world that forever sees one as something less than worthy.
I'm not fighting for hospital visitation rights because I worry about being blocked from visiting. (My family and Marc's were at our wedding last April, and they completely support us; plus we have all our legal documents lined up.) Instead, I'm fighting for visitation rights (and all the others) because we deserve equal rights. We need them to be whole human beings.
Posted by: MarkDaMan | Dec 13, 2004 9:11:17 AM
I just don't understand when it became acceptable, and popular, to allow the population at large to vote on certain civil rights for smaller groups of people...and calling the results fair or even acceptable.
I am reminded of a time when everyone was screaming that they didn't want gays to have "special rights." Now it seems the perfect solution to allow these citizens a special class to quiet them down in order to "protect" our own institution we have already desecrated. I think locking people out of marriage for any reason is wrong as marriage is a personal choice, but could someone explain to me why there wasn't/isn't a momentum among these neo-conservatives to ban people from marriage if the heterosexual person had failed at it not just once or twice but sometimes three times or more? If marraige is about procreation, shouldn't there be a ban against infertile couples who don't plan to adopt? Why can famous actors and singers (not to mention the thousands of unreported average citizen stories) have a shotgun wedding and subsequently a shotgun annulment or divorce, and remarry within months, but gays aren't even given just a single chance to realize that freedom?
Posted by: varner | Dec 13, 2004 10:48:43 AM
It is also important to recognize what the Yes on 36 people said during the campaign. It isn't that they don't want marriage for gay and lesbian couples, it's that they don't want gay and lesbian couples to have families at all.
I recieved a mail piece from the campaign featuring Gordon Smith (Thanks HRC!) that talked about how children need a mother and father. The intent of the piece, with Smith's signature, was to say that gay and lesbian parents are bad for children.
Further, the christian right has come out against a proposal by Senator Ben Westland (R-Bend) to allow civil unions at the state level.
So I think that to be fair to the discussion at hand, it isn't that the right-wing says marriage is only for straight people (just get a lawyer Jim!), it is that the right-wing hates gay and lesbian people for who they are, and Measure 36 was just the vehicle du jour.
Posted by: jim | Dec 13, 2004 11:31:10 AM
"the right-wing hates gay and lesbian people for who they are, and Measure 36 was just the vehicle du jour."
Yes, this is the REAL issue. And as ugly and as difficult as it might be to do so, until we as a society grapple with this head on, we won't make much progress on this issue.
Posted by: Anthony | Dec 13, 2004 12:43:04 PM
It's clear from the results in Oregon alone that it wasn't just the "right wing" or Christian fundamentalists that opposed gay marriage.
Posted by: Marcello | Dec 13, 2004 1:33:08 PM
I recieved a mail piece from the campaign featuring Gordon Smith (Thanks HRC!) that talked about how children need a mother and father. The intent of the piece, with Smith's signature, was to say that gay and lesbian parents are bad for children.
By their own flawed logic, the right should be even more outraged by single mothers (or more rarely single fathers) raising children. After all, having one loving and caring mommy can't be better than having two of them.
So where is their outrage, where is the call for more funding for program that support single mothers, where is the call for an increase in minimum wages to help get people out of poverty, where is the call for more education on contraception in middle and high schools?
Family values my ass. The right's campaign against gay families has nothing to do with supporting children.
Posted by: cc | Dec 13, 2004 2:48:19 PM
It's clear from the results in Oregon alone that it wasn't just the "right wing" or Christian fundamentalists that opposed gay marriage.
This may be true but it never woulda hit the ballot without the right-wingers and all that money. Most moderates who opposed gay marriage didn't turn out for that issue, they turned out to vote for President and voted on everything else as long as they were there. In a mid-term election, the results may have been different. It would just depend on what else was on the ballot.
As for the moderates who voted yes on 36... they just fear change.
There are two schools of thought on changes this big - it's like pulling off a band-aid - either do it really, really slow, or really, really fast. If it were a band-aid, we'd rip it off fast, right? Jump in the cold pool and then let our bodies adjust, right? Well, social change doesn't work like that, in my opinion. It would have been wiser for us to, as a state, look to granting civil unions and affording all rights to gay couples first, then once everyone was used to the idea and saw that the world didn't collapse, allowing gay marriage wouldn't be a big deal at all.
I understand how that would be frustrating, but in all honesty, considering how society as a whole thinks, it would have been a much better route to go. Now that we've changed the definition of marriage in the constitution and the thoughts and fears have been planted in people's minds - or, if they were already there, they've been affirmed - unfortunately we've taken a couple giant steps backward.
Posted by: Anthony | Dec 13, 2004 3:06:21 PM
CC,
I think you're generally right about the pace of social change, but forcing the issue did accomplish the mainstreaming of the idea that gay relationships should be accorded public recognition.
I haven't thought much about what would likely have been achieved if activism had been directed at establishing civil unions, but what has been achieved by aiming higher seems significant.
Posted by: cc | Dec 13, 2004 5:09:41 PM
I agree that it put civil unions into a better light for folks, but as for marriage itself, I really think we lost ground. While civil unions are a great step in the right direction - it's just not the same.
Posted by: Kari Chisholm | Dec 13, 2004 5:36:35 PM
Many anti-gay-marriage folks say things like, "All these rights and privileges you're talking about can be accomplished through private legal documents."
Setting aside the question of why we're forcing gays and lesbians to do paperwork and hire lawyers just to get rights and privileges afforded straight couples in a no-hassle way... there's still the question of the many rights and privileges that CANNOT be granted via private legal document.
ICU visitation is one. Another example: the right to spousal privilege in a court of law. The law treats a husband/wife team as it does the right against self-incrimination. A husband cannot be forced to testify about things his wife has told him, and vice versa.
The spousal privilege does not exist for gay couples -- and that privilege cannot be created through any legal documents. It can only be granted by the state.
Posted by: LeAnn | Dec 14, 2004 7:41:23 AM
Here are some words of wisdom from "Jill Kerr". After my recent letter about this topic to a local paper, I got this fine postcard in my home mailbox from Jill.
"Get over yourself! It's not about you, you, you! Just shut up. It's about OUR rights. Get an attorney and you can get all the things you "yap" about: inheritance, medical crisis, etc. We believe that marriage=one man, one woman. That's OUR right and we won, so deal. You lost in liberal old Oregon, so what does that tell you? P.S. Don't go to church."
There's obviously lack of knowledge, across the board, of what rights are granted through marriage, and about the consitutional clause promising no rights will be given to one part of the population and not the other.
As I've believed all along, the marriage issue was and is only a thin veil for masking general hatred of the GLBTQ community. It's just a shame that it's being done through organization in the churches. How does anything like that reflect Jesus' teachings?! It's called Hypocrisy.
Posted by: Mac Diva | Dec 14, 2004 10:19:24 AM
Anthony raised an interesting aspect that I've been thinking about, too. Many of the people who came out expressly to vote against gay marriage were Right Wing Christians. BUT, a significant portion of them were not. A surprisingly high proportion of Democrats voted against gay marriage nationally.
Yesterday, I read an article about a problem Democrats are having in the Piedmont section of North Carolina, where I partly grew up. Black Democrats will vote for both black and white members of the party. But, many white Democrats will not vote for blacks, Democrat or not. So, black Democrats lose their elections more often. This is very similar to what is going on with some Democrats and the gay marriage issue. We have our share of bigots, too.
Note: The presence of any individual above does not imply an endorsement by BlueOregon. The selection of faces shown is done by Facebook. Visit BlueOregon on Facebook.
Posted by: Steve Schopp | Dec 12, 2004 6:51:50 PM
This is really interesting. I was stuck during the campaign season with the inexplicable nature of this contention.
I, like many people, have visited a number of people in the hospital who I was not only not married to but not related to at all.
Please explain to me what the heck this line has been about. I'm sure all of the people who have visited unrelated folks in the hospital wondered the same thing.
It would appear that there is something else at work here.
I can imagine that if gay partners were indeed singled out and not allowed hospital visitation there would be more than gay marriage to ponder.
Just plain meanness would be the topic.
Why have I and so many others (including gay folks) visited countless friends and non-spousal patients without any "married" qualifier?
I just don't get it.
I also can't understand why those who voice this notion would ever think anyone would get it.
?????