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Missouri, USA: Gay Man Arrested for Refusing to Leave Partner’s Bedside

Thursday, April 11th, 2013

In Missouri, a gay man who refused to leave his partner’s bedside in the hospital was arrested. The Raw Story reports:

Roger Gorley told WDAF that even though he has power of attorney to handle his partner’s affairs, a family member asked him to leave when he visited Research Medical Center in Kansas City on Tuesday. Gorley said he refused to leave his partner Allen’s bedside, and that’s when security put him in handcuffs and escorted him from the building. “I was not recognized as being the husband, I wasn’t recognized as being the partner,” Gorley explained.

Gorley and his partner did everything they could in conservative Missouri to insure their rights – and as one of them lies alone in the hospital, it still was not enough. This, in a nutshell, is why marriage equality is so important.

Find more articles and gay wedding resources in Missouri.

Posted in Marriage Equality/Gay Marriage, Missouri | 27 Responses »
Tags: arrested, family, gay cuple, Gay Marriage, hospital visitation rights, marriage equality, missouri, same sex marriage

White House Issues New Rules for Hospitals on Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

Today the White House announced the publication of rules prohibiting Medicare and Medicaid hospitals from denying visitation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

The rules were created in response to a Presidential Memorandum issued earlier this year which instructed the Department of Health and Human Services to create new rules allowing patients the right to choose their own visitors during a hospital stay.

Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued that rule – a rule that will let patients decide whom they want by their bedside when they are sick – and that includes a visitor who is a same-sex domestic partner. The rule presents an important step forward in giving all Americans more control over their health care.

Full Story from Pam’s House Blend

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Posted in Uncategorized | No Responses »
Tags: gender, hospital visitation rights, medicaid, medicare, new rules, sexual orientation, white house

Right-Wing Groups Accuse Obama of Undermining Marriage With Hospital Visitation Benefits

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

Earlier this week, President Barack Obama made a bit of history by issuing a memorandum ordering U.S. hospitals (or at least those that participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs) to allow full visitation rights for same-sex partners. It was a much needed move, highlighted by heartbreaking stories like Janice Langbehn, who was denied access to her dying partner in a Miami hospital, or Sharon Reed, who was removed from her dying partner’s hospital room by a homophobic “nurse from hell.”

Even for those folks who cringe at the idea of gay marriage, could there be anything offensive about letting a same-sex partner into a hospital room? Would somebody or some group be so craven as to say to a dying patient, “No, I don’t care who you love. You deserve to die alone.”?

As Sarah Palin might say, you betcha. Cue the anger from some right-wing anti-gay groups over Obama’s hospital memorandum. They don’t see this as a human right, or as a way of making sure that sick and dying people don’t have to suffer alone. Nope, they see this as part of the slippery slope to same-sex marriage, and something that should be condemned. A bit soulless, eh?

Full Story from Change.org

Click here for gay marriage resources.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Response »
Tags: Gay Marriage, hospital visitation rights, marriage equality, order, president obama, same sex marriage, slippery slope

Obama’s Hospital Visitation Order: One More Safe Move

Saturday, April 17th, 2010

As news of the presidential memorandum conferring hospital visitation rights on same-sex couples settled in Friday morning, a gnawing ambivalence enveloped me. Once this directive works its way through the rules process at Health and Human Services, it will no doubt provide real people with profound and irreplaceable moments that might otherwise have been denied them in their darkest and most vulnerable hours. For that I say, Thank you, Mr. President.

But as I look at the list of advancements President Obama has made for LGBT Americans, I can’t escape noticing that nearly all of them fall under the heading “Too politically palatable to have a downside.”

It’s an ever-growing list of small, incremental steps toward equality that are most certainly positive but still fall far short of the campaign promises that Sen. Barack Obama ran on.

Full Story from the Advocate

Click here for gay marriage resources.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Responses »
Tags: gay couples, hospital visitation rights, lesbian couples, obama, order