This thread is getting better and better.
[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
Edit: And since you brought it up, you’re correct. Telephathy (currently) isn’t possible. So why is Bill assuming he knows gay people want benefits, not marriage?[/quote]
And not all the benefits of marriage are insurance or provided by a 3rd party company. Most hospitals still enforce family visitation rights, mine does. While most hospital staff will still let non-family visit, especially non married significant others, Ive still seen people turned away, even when the patient isn’t getting any other visitors, based on that rule, and even by individual staff double standards. “Oh your his highschool girlfriend, thats cute yea you can visit.” “oh your his life partner? im sorry only direct family can visit.”
You also are not able to figure out that those hospitals or other parties, if they wish, can already grant whatever you mention?
That it doesn’t take a new law for them to do so?
That what you are asking for actually is for OTHERS to be forced to do differently than they choose, rather than “letting” gays do something they now cannot (actually they can have whatever relationship between them that they wish"?
If those arguing your position would man up and acknowledge that yes, this is exactly your point, you wish to force various parties to do differently than they wish, then at least there would be integrity to your argument.
Incidentally, on this hospitals claim: I have visited very many people in very many hospitals. In no case was there ever unreasonable treatment with regard to visiting. In some cases there were legit reasons to have no visitor at a given time. When there was no such reason, there was never such an issue. I was never asked my sexual orientation.
My personal expectation is that this is a non-issue, and when raised, is being raised by professional victims
For example, my father’s first (and also 5th and last) wife was such. Not only was it the case (according to her) that essentially every business she dealt with treated her awfully, in the specific case of hospitals, I saw first-hand repeatedly that her constant trumped-up complaints were utterly beyond belief. They were so bad that at least one hospital would not accept my father back.
I doubt that professional victims are limited only to heterosexuals.
So – in those cases where the professional victim happens to be homosexual, and surely no one can reasonably deny that that will happen – the law you desire will create either a real mess or, de facto, special rights.
E.g., there are in fact many instances in which a hospital is being completely reasonable in allowing no visitors at a given time. They would not allow a heterosexual spouse to visit either.
Now, the heterosexual spouse, regardless of being a professional victim, doesn’t have a leg to stand on legally so far as suing goes. All they can do is complain endlessly, which they indeed will do.
But with the new law you want, if the person is homosexual, oh, the hospital must fear. Because a discrimination suit most surely will be threatened, won’t it.
Sorry: special rights are not needed, and new insertion of government into these interactions between individuals or between companies and individuals is not needed.
Everyone is already free to grant whatever they wish to grant to homosexual couples, and homosexuals are already free to have whatever relationship they want to have between themselves. Can you acknowledge that this is true, or do we have another person to whom writing a post is the equivalent of typing to a wall?
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Incidentally, on this hospitals claim: I have visited very many people in very many hospitals. In no case was there ever unreasonable treatment with regard to visiting. In some cases there were legit reasons to have no visitor at a given time. When there was no such reason, there was never such an issue. I was never asked my sexual orientation.
My personal expectation is that this is a non-issue, and when raised, is being raised by professional victims.[/quote]
Hey Bill, I generally enjoy your posts on the BB forum.
I’m glad that you haven’t experienced discrimination in hospitals, but it does happen. A good friend of mine was with his partner for 25 years when his partner had a heart attack. The ambulance wouldn’t allow my friend to ride with his partner in the ambulance, and when he got to the hospital, they refused him the right to see his partner. He had to wait until his partner’s father arrived, and granted permission to see him. His partner died from the heart attack.
That is so wrong to me. Once reason I support gay marriage is that it does force hospitals to recognize the validity of same sex relationships, rather than allowing them to blatantly discriminate in this way.
But you know what?
Heterosexual spouses are often denied a ride in the ambulance.
I’m sorry about his having to wait on seeing his partner – I don’t agree with the hospital’s decision – but I do agree that if they are a private hospital (I don’t know if they are) it should be their right to have such rules.
It is not discrimination, by the way. Every person is being treated by the same rules. The decision was not because of his being gay. The hospital chose to have narrowly defined rules, but not rules that take into account the sexual orientation of a person.
[quote]lucasa wrote:
I’m interested in minimizing the number of couples who partake in a social contract that they have no intent to uphold (or at least selecting the most motivated to uphold…), I’m interested in rational, sound, and mutually beneficial personal and social decision-making. Gay marriage and the expansion of marriage in general is anti-thetic to those aims.[/quote]
What evidence do you have that gay couples are any more likely to divorce than straight couples? I haven’t seen any statistics supporting that contention, in countries that allow gay marriage.
I don’t understand why people don’t recognize that marriage, and the legally binding responsibilities associated with it, make it less likely that people are going to have random, irresponsible sex with tons of people. People do cheat on their spouses, whether gay or straight, but marriage makes this less likely, due to the legal repercussions of doing so.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
But you know what?
Heterosexual spouses are often denied a ride in the ambulance.
I’m sorry about his having to wait on seeing his partner – I don’t agree with the hospital’s decision – but I do agree that if they are a private hospital (I don’t know if they are) it should be their right to have such rules.
It is not discrimination, by the way. Every person is being treated by the same rules. The decision was not because of his being gay. The hospital chose to have narrowly defined rules, but not rules that take into account the sexual orientation of a person.[/quote]
If there’s a medical reason for denying visitation rights, that’s understandable. My point is that gay couples should be allowed the same visitation rights that are granted to straight couples. If everyone really is treated by the same rules, irrespective of sexual orientation, I’m all for that.
In my friend’s example, it’s obvious that he was discriminated against due to being in a same sex relationship. The hospital wouldn’t have required his father’s permission to see his dying partner if they had been a married straight couple.
Even if we stipulate that, that is no reason to adopt legislation that has other problems that I’ve pointed out for the sake of correcting that one.
Why not address that specific issue instead, if desired.
Secondly, as a practical suggestion, I expect that a lawyer could advise a very simple way for any person, gay or straight, to pre-empt any such problem.
Almost undoubtedly a simple one-page document could be prepared in advance in which a person makes clear that another person is approved to visit them in any medical situation. Perhaps with an addition that they are included as immediate family.
Yeah, I don’t think anyone should have to go to the trouble, but life is imperfect, and if that would solve people’s problems that they have a serious concern about, why not do it.
Rather than demand legislation that would, for example, if I were an employer force me to pay for benefits over and above anything I had ever voluntarily agreed to, and over and above what my employee agreed to work for.
The inability to have the implicit legal right to visit your partner in the hospital is only one of many examples. Issues of child custody, immigration rights, social security, federal taxes, etc. are all tied to marriage.
Now, if people want to call it a civil union instead, I’m completely fine with that. I don’t care what you call it, as long as it entails the same legal rights and responsibilities as marriage, particularly at the federal level.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Almost undoubtedly a simple one-page document could be prepared in advance in which a person makes clear that another person is approved to visit them in any medical situation. Perhaps with an addition that they are included as immediate family.
[/quote]
I don’t know about America but here in England you have a question on your medical records ( and employment records ) which is simply:
Next of kin: ___________
The person you write down as such is the person who is given the right to be with you should an accident occur.
In the above example by forlife, the man having the heart attack would have written down that his father was to be called in an emergency and everyone else as such would not be allowed in without permission of the chosen next of kin.
Some people do chose to have someone rather than their partners at their death bed and that has to be respected also. And sometimes it hurts to find out that at your partners last hour, you were not the chosen one as the nearest and dearest.
That’s not the case though. My friend and his partner had medical power of attorney for one another, but because they didn’t have the papers with them, the default judgment was to only allow “immediate family” to visit and grant permission to others to visit.
It is an unfair standard to require gay couples not only to explicitly grant medical power of attorney, but to have papers on hand to prove it, regardless of the stress of current circumstances.
Had they been a straight couple, my friend would have been able to visit his wife, no questions asked.
That’s not the case though. My friend and his partner had medical power of attorney for one another, but because they didn’t have the papers with them, the default judgment was to only allow “immediate family” to visit and grant permission to others to visit.
It is an unfair standard to require gay couples not only to explicitly grant medical power of attorney, but to have papers on hand to prove it, regardless of the stress of current circumstances.
Had they been a straight couple, my friend would have been able to visit his wife, no questions asked.
[quote]forlife wrote:
That’s not the case though. My friend and his partner had medical power of attorney for one another, but because they didn’t have the papers with them, the default judgment was to only allow “immediate family” to visit and grant permission to others to visit.
It is an unfair standard to require gay couples not only to explicitly grant medical power of attorney, but to have papers on hand to prove it, regardless of the stress of current circumstances.[/quote]
Unfair? If I know someone I love is in the hospital and the only way I can see them on a regular basis is to have a paper with me I would simply make one copy keep it in the glove compartment of my car and then the problem is solved. Of course changing a 5000 year old institution might seem easier to you.
As it should be.