Like most hospitals in the metro area, MFC supports visitation privileges for homosexual couples. In fact, a brief survey of a half dozen metro area hospitals failed to discover a hospital that denied visitation to homosexual partners. One hospital rhetorically asked how they would know if a visitor was a brother, sister, or lover?
So, if gay partners can already visit one another in the hospital, then why does OutFront insist upon passing legislation (HF 1589, SF 1398) creating special "domestic partner" status for homosexual visitation purposes?
Apparently because they want special emergency room privledges.
A recent OutFront press release shed light on "Compelling" senate testimony by J. Lindsay Flint, "whose partner was denied access to the emergency room where Lindsay was with their two-year-old son as he was suffering from pneumonia. 'I am scared because I know my son is very ill and not able to breathe. The last thing I want to be doing is justifying why we both had the right to be in this room.'"Lindsay's partner was wasting her time if she was using her sexual orientation to justify her right to be in the emergency room. The same survey discovered that hospitals have a general policy of allowing only one person in an emergency room with a patient at a time. Since Lindsay was already in the emergency room, her partner simply had to wait her turn - like everyone else.
Do homosexuals really need special "domestic partner" status to allow two in an emergency room? Are their needs any different than other emergency room patients?
Clearly, OutFront is trying to create a special, discriminatory status where none is needed.
