Matt Barber, an attorney with the Liberty Council has said a lot of disgusting things in the past but this one just really pisses me off.
His recent comments concern the new rules handed down by the department of Health and Human Services which state that any visitor designated by a patient must be granted access to them. This was largely written to protect same-sex couples from discrimination.
From this article “Certainly there are Catholic hospitals and Baptist hospitals that recognize homosexual behavior as sinful behavior,” he points, “and they do not want to take part in affirming homosexual sin under the strong arm of the government.” This comes after he describes the new ruling as ‘political theater in trying to create the disingenuous idea that people based on their so-called “sexual orientation” are roundly discriminated against’ and then points out that faith-based hospitals are not exempt from the rule.
Gay couples ARE regularly discriminated against when it comes to hospital visitation and only a complete sociopath would have a problem with someone dying in the hospital being allowed the comfort of visits from their chosen family. I don’t give a flying fuck if my doctor has his conscience twinged or not, it’s none of his fucking business who comes to visit me if I’m in the hospital. (barring of course someone with a contagious disease)
I know that he, the AFA (who quotes him ALL the freaking time), Peter LaBarbara (who is also quoted by them all the freaking time) and their ilk think those of us that are gay are going to hell, but it’s things like this that show that they lack even the most basic elements of human compassion.
Call me stupid, but I don’t understand how a hospital has the right to turn away any visitor for any reason (that the patient wants to see, of course). I stayed the night in a hospital with my grandma one time and it was no big deal. I was over 18, there was no problem. (And she wasn’t terminal or any special case like that, she just wanted the company.)
An adult male visiting another adult male… they could be brothers or good friends. Why does the hospital give a shit? Unless you’re trying to move in I don’t see what their problem is.
Most of the time it’s when there is an ‘immediate family only’ restriction or things along those lines. A lot of hospitals would turn away a same sex partner on the grounds that they were not family.
If I want a good friend to visit me, rather than a family member, who is the hospital to tell me who can visit me? What if my family are all assholes who cut off contact with me when I was 18, and my friends have been there for me for 30 years?
Does anyone have any GQ type info on the “new rules handed down by the department of Health and Human Services”?
Do Department of Health and Human Services rules carry the full weight of law?
Do there exist current laws established by any legislative body (state or federal) that may conflict with the new rules by the Department (if so, I would assume that established law would supersede conflicting Department rules, am I right?)?
As the higher-ups in the Department of Health and Human Services are eventually replaced can the successors easily change the rule?
I don’t know the answer to all your questions, but they are only binding on facilities that accept medicare/medicaid, which (from what I recall) account for about 92% of all hospitals.
I can see where they’d need to limit the total number of visitors they get, especially at any given time. But that could easily accommodate same sex partners by allowing patients “x” number of visitors of his choosing.
The only sticking point there would be that they might want “x” to be variable, depending on the size of the family, and figuring that it will naturally average out to be acceptable. Patient A may have 7 close family members, and patient B might have only 2.
Still, I don’t see how allowing same sex partners would tip that balance anymore than allowing stepchildren or other types of blended family. It seems to come down only to not wanting to acknowledge same sex partners.
What if you are in a coma? Then you can’t sit there and say “yes” or “no” to any visitors. Now if for some reason the hospital wants to limit visitors, they say immediate family only and then tell same sex partners (who are not married) they can’t come to the room.
Then when you die, your relatives will tell the judge you never even visited them in the hospital and they should get the inheritance.