Cruelty Beyond Belief

In February 2007 a woman was taken ill on board a cruise ship in Miami. She was rushed to hospital, but the prognosis was not good and she died very quickly. Her partner and children had accompanied her to the hospital, but once the patient had been whisked away by hospital staff they were not allowed any access to her until the last rites were read. The children were not allowed to see her at all. Why? No, there was no infectious disease or anything like that. It was simply because the dying woman and her partner were lesbians and, in the words of one hospital worker were, “in an anti-gay city and state.”

The story is news again today because, after a long court case, a District Judge has ruled that the hospital was perfectly within its rights. Because lesbians cannot marry in Florida, it is perfectly legal to deny their families access to them when they are ill.

Nicola Griffith has more on the story.

What boggles me about the whole thing is that the hospital staff could be so consumed with hatred for a particular group of their fellow human being that they could be that cruel to two complete strangers and their three young children.

11 thoughts on “Cruelty Beyond Belief

  1. I… I really have very few words. It stuns me how people can hate so freely, so easily, against people who are in such a situation, or just who are trying to live their lives, or end them with some dignity. Thank you for the link, because this is the kind of thing people need to know about, and I didn’t.

  2. And the man who has the power to end this legalised hatred sits back and gets a Nobel peace prize.

  3. I can’t actually believe that even now, in Western society, people believe that this is acceptable.

    That poor woman. Her poor partner. Her shattered children.

    Thank you for posting this.

  4. How can a supposedly educated and unbiased judge hand down such a blatently discriminatory ruling? If an opposite sex pair (e.g. brother &sister) can grant next of kin rights and deathbed access to each other even if not married, then surely a same sex pair can do same. Relationship between 2 people doesn’t dictate validity of legal rights and arrangements!!!
    discriminantion on any grounds is illegal.

  5. Rather than being “so consumed with hatred”, I’d be inclined to hypothesize the staff was so consumed with keeping their jobs by following rules made by some board or committee which was consumed with terror at any imaginable controversy . . .

    Not that any of it is any less a travesty.

  6. @Neil: No. People who are meekly following orders don’t make statements like “you are in an anti-gay city and state. And without a health care proxy you will not see Lisa nor know of her condition”.

    The lesson I learn from this debacle is this: if civil rights are important to you, stay the fuck out of Florida.

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