Gay Rights Groups Seek to Intervene in Federal Challenge to Calif. Same-Sex Marriage Ban
Gay rights groups’ attempt to intervene in a federal challenge of California’s Proposition 8 has created a rift with the high-powered attorneys heading the case, turning erstwhile allies into head-butting competitors.
Both sides have diverging visions of legal strategy. The gay groups are pushing a cautious, narrow approach based on the circumstances of Prop 8, while Theodore Olson, David Boies and their backers are seeking a decisive victory for all gay couples under the U.S. Constitution.
The civil rights groups — the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union — are also worried that the Olson/Boies team is underestimating the importance of U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker’s insistence on a fully developed factual record. They moved this month to intervene (pdf) so they can present evidence of historic discrimination against gays and lesbians and answer Walker’s questions, such as whether sexual orientation can be changed and whether same-sex marriages destabilize opposite-sex marriages.
See Gay Rights Groups Seek to Intervene in Federal Challenge to Calif …
Above the Law
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How Hospitals Treat Same-Sex Couples
For same-sex couples, a ring and legal papers may not be enough to navigate the health system.
During a medical emergency, a patient’s husband, wife, parents or other family members often are close by, overseeing treatment, making medical decisions and keeping vigil at the bedside.
But what happens if the hospital won’t allow you to stay with your partner or child?
That’s the challenge many same-sex couples face during health care emergencies when hospital security personnel, administrators and even doctors and nurses exclude them from a patient’s room because they aren’t “real” family members. The issue is addressed in a new report from The Human Rights Campaign Foundation, a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights group, and the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. The groups have created a Healthcare Equality Index for hospitals that focuses on five key areas: patient rights, visitation, decision-making, cultural competency training and employment policies and benefits.
This year, 166 facilities across the country agreed to participate in the report, about twice as many as last year. The group says nearly 75 percent of the hospitals have policies to protect their patients from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. However, sometimes the policies aren’t correctly implemented by hospital workers. Some examples of unfair treatment of gay couples cited by the group include:
- A Bakersfield, Calif., couple rushed their child to the emergency room with a 104 degree fever. The women were registered domestic partners, but the hospital only allowed the biological mother to stay with the child. Although hospitals typically allow both parents to stay with a child during treatment, in this case, the second parent was forced to stay in the waiting room.
- An Oregon man whose registered domestic partner was unconscious was told to leave the hospital room because it was time for family members to make decisions about his care. He was forced to plead his case before hospital administrators before being allowed to stay with his partner, who was dying.
- A woman from Washington collapsed while on vacation in Miami. Although her partner had an advanced health care directive, hospital officials told her she wasn’t a family member under Florida law. The woman spent hours talking with hospital administrators to prove that the document from her home state was, in fact, still valid in Florida. Although she eventually prevailed, her partner’s condition deteriorated and the woman died. Because of the problem, the children the patient had been raising with her partner weren’t able to see her before she died.
While heterosexual couples typically don’t have to provide marriage licenses to hospitals in order to prove they are husband and wife, same sex couples often must document their relationship to hospital officials before being allowed to take part in a partner’s care.
“There is a real disconnect between what might be a good written policy or state law and actual implementation of that policy or law,” said Ellen Kahn, family project director for the HRC. “If you’re presenting as two men in a couple and you say, ‘This is my partner. I’ll make medical decisions,’ you’re asked a lot of questions. Who is this person to you? Do you have legal documentation that verifies that? A parent, sister or nephew could have more rights under the law than a same-sex partner who has been together 20 years.”
Although many hospitals have improved their treatment of same-sex couples, partners are advised to keep legal documents close by in the event of a medical emergency. Friends should also have ready access to documents so they can fax or e-mail them if necessary.
For couples who don’t have documentation or are worried that their relationship might not be recognized during a medical emergency, the solution often is to pretend to be a sibling in order to ensure access to a partner.
“If you’re on the road and have a crisis, the word on the street is just say, ‘This is my sister,’ or ‘This is my brother,’ ” Ms. Kahn said. “Most people won’t raise an eyebrow about it unless you look very different. It’s sad that we have to think about that. Am I going to be better off saying this is my sister or this is my life partner?”
How Hospitals Treat Same-Sex Couples
May 12, 2009
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-hospitals…
Tears, resolve for gay marriage fight in Maine
Southern York County was well represented Wednesday, April 22, among the proponents of a gay marriage bill who attended a public hearing at the Augusta Civic Center.
“It’s been incredibly moving,” said Kittery Point resident Lane Williamson, whose lesbian daughter was married in Massachusetts to her longtime partner. “There’s a huge pro-civil rights group here, from tiny babies to grandparents.”
Williamson, who also has a heterosexual married daughter, said she has long fought for women’s and civil rights.
“Marriage is a civil right and therefore each of my daughters has a right to be married,” she said. “If Vermont can do it (pass a gay marriage law) and Iowa can do it, for goodness sake, then Maine had better. I’m quite certain that the bill will pass.”
She and others in attendance at the hearing talked of seeing a “sea of red” among those in the audience — as the pro-bill organization Equality Maine asked proponents to wear red clothing. Of the estimated 4,000 to 5,000 in attendance, they said, it appeared from the clothing that about two-thirds of those attending favored the bill.
That was particularly gratifying for Mary Breen, who lives with her partner in South Berwick and owns a business in Ogunquit, as well as Marsha Clegg of Wells, who has been in a committed relationship with her partner for 14 years.
Breen said she was in Augusta because, “I feel if I don’t stand up for my civil rights, why should anyone else? There’s strength in numbers and I would feel badly if I wasn’t there to be counted.” She said she and her partner of almost four years “want to be married, but we want to be married in Maine, because that’s our home. We’re not asking anyone to change their religion. We just want a level playing field.”
Like others who attended, she said both sides had been very respectful and there had not been any violence or rowdiness. She said she has had to suck it up when hearing opponents call homosexuals “wrong and perverse” and using the Bible to make the point. But on the other hand, “it’s been very encouraging and empowering to hear people who are supportive. It makes all of us feel stronger.”
See Tears, resolve for gay marriage fight York Weekly
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/04/tears-resolve…
Tears, resolve for gay marriage fight
AUGUSTA, Maine — Southern York County was well represented Wednesday among the proponents of a gay marriage bill who attended a public hearing at the Augusta Civic Center.
“It’s been incredibly moving,” said Kittery Point resident Lane Williamson, whose lesbian daughter was married in Massachusetts to her longtime partner. “There’s a huge pro-civil rights group here, from tiny babies to grandparents.”
Williamson, who also has a heterosexual married daughter, said she has long fought for women’s rights and civil rights.
“Marriage is a civil right and therefore each of my daughters has a right to be married,” she said. “If Vermont can do it (pass a gay marriage law) and Iowa can do it, for goodness sake, then Maine had better. I’m quite certain that the bill will pass.”
She and others in attendance Wednesday talked of seeing a “sea of red” among those in the audience — as the pro-bill organization Equality Maine asked proponents to wear red clothing. Of the estimated 4,000 to 5,000 in attendance, they said, it appeared from the clothing that about two-thirds of those attending favored the bill.
That was particularly gratifying for Mary Breen, who lives with her partner in South Berwick and owns a business in Ogunquit, as well as Marsha Clegg of Wells, who has been in a committed relationship with her partner for 14 years.
Breen said she was in Augusta because, “I feel if I don’t stand up for my civil rights, why should anyone else? There’s strength in numbers and I would feel badly if I wasn’t there to be counted.” She said she and her partner of almost four years “want to be married, but we want to be married in Maine, because that’s our home. We’re not asking anyone to change their religion. We just want a level playing field.”
Like others who attended, she said both sides had been very respectful and there had not been any violence or rowdiness. She said she has had to suck it up when hearing opponents call homosexuals “wrong and perverse” and using the Bible to make the point. But on the other hand, “it’s been very encouraging and empowering to hear people who are supportive. It makes all of us feel stronger.”
For Clegg, Wednesday’s hearing was the result of hard work on the part of Equality Maine, for which she has volunteered during the past year.
“This is real important to us. It’s such a civil right. Right now, I feel like I’m separate and not equal,” she said. Civil unions, like New Hampshire currently allows, “are a failed experiment. It was like they threw us a bone and said, ‘That should be good enough for them.’”
See Tears, resolve for gay marriage fight York Weekly
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/04/tears-resolve…
Jamaican gays warn against US boycott
(Kingston) Jamaica’s largest LGBT civil rights group is asking American gays to reject a boycott of Jamaica and Jamaican products.
US rights group TruthWinsOut, founded by 365gay columnist Wayne Besen, has called for a boycott of the island and some of its most famous products, to protest several violent homophobic incidents …
Tags: American Gays, Boycott, Civil Rights Group, Columnist, Homophobic, Jamaican Products, Kingston Jamaica, Wayne Besen
