For gays, it happens all the time

I hesitate to even write about this situation and about the Schiavo family. I hesitate because I don’t want to write about what has happened in their family and all the heartache they have gone through and compare it to my situation.

But one thing about the case that has been brought to the forefront is the power of marriage in making life and death decisions. Without the power of marriage, none of this would have happened. Michael Shiavo would have had no say about Terri’s fate.

As the fight over Terri Schiavo’s fate played out in court, gay and lesbian organizations watched quietly from the sidelines, aware that any outcome would speak to one of the key motivations in their quest for same-sex marriage: the right to make medical decisions for a partner.

It’s an issue faced regularly by same-sex couples, and the battle that Michael Schiavo waged with his in-laws as he sought to remove his wife’s feeding tube only underscored their difficulties, said David Buckel of the New York-based gay rights group Lambda Legal.

“It certainly resonates with us,” said Buckel, director of marriage-related activities for Lambda Legal. “If folks look at this situation and see that a spouse is struggling to carry out the wishes of his loved one, imagine what folks face when they don’t even have access to the spousal relationship because they can’t get married.” [...]

In addition, because such rights differ by state, there is no guarantee that a couple will be able to share in each other’s medical decisions should disaster strike far from home. Flanigan and Daniel, for example, were from California, but they were in Maryland when Daniel fell ill.

And gay activists say even if they have gone through the legal machinations of having their partners declared health-care proxies, hospitals might be unfamiliar with such rights or simply refuse to respect them. If the partners don’t happen to be carrying the paperwork to prove their status, they can similarly be refused their rights, said Buckel. (source)

It does happen all the time for us. Every time I go to work, I worry that if something awful should happen, will Kent be able to make decisions for me? Will he be able to see me in the hospital if that should happen? And, when we finally get our power of attorney (it’s in progress), will it make any difference to a hospital? When we go on trips together, I’m told that we will have to carry those papers around with us, just in case something happens. All of this, in this “free” country we live in, because we are unable to marry.

Another part of me tells me not to worry about it because whatever happens, there’s really nothing I can do about it. That’s true. But I worry about Kent. If he were in the hospital and I was not allowed in to see him, I don’t know how I would survive that. Or, if the reverse is true, how would he deal with it?

No wonder they want to keep marriage from us. It has a lot of power and, unlike a civil union that my own state of Connecticut will soon have, it travels with you from state to state.