Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Homosexual Hospital Visitation Rights

Obama says in his speech that even if we disagree about matters concerning homosexual marriage, we should agree that even homosexuals should have the right to visit their loved ones in the hospital. I have heard this argument before and what follows is the fundamental reason why it offends me.

Homosexuals DO have hospital visitation rights, just like heterosexuals. What Obama wants to do is actually give homosexuals MORE privilege than heterosexuals. Let me show you what I mean.

Let's say my friend Billy goes to the hospital. And I love Billy. I REALLY love Billy. My love for Billy is vibrant, mountainous, and unique. And Billy loves me back. Exclusively. We are best friends, and our love exceeds any we could ever imagine having for any women (we're Elizabethan like that). Billy and I are roommates. Have been for 4 years. We are bound together by our love. It just happens to be heterosexual in nature.

Now, when visiting hours are over for those who are not Billy's immediate family, I get kicked out of the room, like everybody else who isn't in that category.

But if Obama had his way, and my love for Billy was no more potent, but happened to be homosexual in nature, I would have gotten to stay.

How is that fair? How is that equal?

It's discriminatory against heterosexuals, is what it is.

And I am offended when presidential candidates discriminate against me for my sexual preference.

14 comments:

  1. To reiterate the points I made on the ride home when I kicked your butt,

    YOU ARE SMARTER THAN THIS.

    Currently, family has special rights and privileges. Just like a male-female couple could marry asexually to obtain whatever benefits of marriage they so desire (like, say, citizenship), a male-male couple could procure a domestic partnership for the same purpose if it were legal.

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  2. Good point. I have since looked into the legislation on the matter in CA and at the federal level, and realized my previous position reflects general ignorance of current policy concerning same-sex unions.

    My revised position is that same-sex unions ought not be recognized as "marriage" at the federal level, and preferably not at the state level either. This is because of the way marriage is treated legislatively - it makes no sense to me to call even monogamous, permanent unions that are same-sex, "marriage", or to treat them as such legislatively. This is a summary of a list of tentative conclusions I came to and is largely based on the fact that marriages are granted certain benefits that categorically belong to heterosexual unions. Most (but not all) of these rights in my opinion have to do with children.

    I am however, now in favor of federally (and preferably stately) recognition of some sort of civil union or domestic partnership that gets treated a certain way legislatively. Most jurisdictions have something like this.

    It just seems obvious to me that if people are choosing to relate to one another in particular ways, we would want various laws to take that into account. I can expand on this if necessary.

    I realize that this is vague - I am not specifying which rights and taxation/other legislative treatments I feel ought to be exclusive to marriage and which ought to be granted or carried out with respect to various types of same-sex unions. This is for two reasons. Firstly, I am not motivated to list out every little thing in my head on the issue at present. Secondly, I have not developed an opinion on several facets of it yet.

    With respect to hospital visitation rights of same-sex partners (be they homosexual or otherwise), I have a few questions and a few comments.

    I wonder what kind of control various jurisdictions have over hospital visitation rights and why. What federal regulations are involved? State? County? City? Company? Why?

    Lastly, it seems obvious to me that an individual should have as much control as possible over who he or she believes counts as his or her "immediate family" or equivalent. There may be various ways of granting that control, but I can't think of any real good reasons why someone else should tell me who is allowed to visit me during restricted hospital visitation hours unless there is an obvious and well-grounded medical reason for it.

    As always, I am open to discussion and I believe in my ability to be persuaded by good argument or sentiment.

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  3. "same-sex unions ought not be recognized as "marriage" at the federal level"

    By the way, I am aware that they are not, currently (because of DOMA). To be forthcoming however, I have to admit that I am unaware of the nuances of DOMA and therefore cannot comment on the specifics of DOMA at this time.

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  4. Isn’t the real issue here whether or not people of homosexual orientation have certain rights which the government, in the name of Justice, must recognize? I mean the following.

    To say that person S has right Y, in American Jurisprudence (see The Declaration of Independence), means to say God has made person S to have right Y, inalienably. But clearly, God did not create any person with the inalienable right to homosexual: marriage, civil unions, special hospital visitation privilidges, etc.

    It does seem, however, that you were onto something Louis. I think it is plausible to say that extremely close friends should have special hospital visitation privilidges. But one doesn’t need to support same-sex domestic partnership to accomplish this; you would simply need to legislate laws that recognize the rights of close friends.

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  5. Thank you for forcing me to be more specific. In my former comment I used "right" to pick out government-granted rights, privileges, liberties, luxuries, and the like. In this comment I shall use "right" in the Lockean sense to the best of my understanding.

    So I don't think that same-sex couples have any Divinely granted right to form legallt recognized "civil unions" (as defined by any of the various jurisdictions in American that recognize such) or the like, but I do think they have the divine right to engage in intimate relationships, and are free even to engage in intimate relationships to which they add a sinful component, such as misplaced eroticism.

    The government would not be violating this right to relationship by failing to enact elaborate civil union laws, but they would also not be violating anyone's rights if they did so (depending on the details of the legislation). So the government has to decide how it is going to treat various types of relationships for taxation and other legislative purposes.

    And it is to this that I have a 'who cares' attitude that leans toward favoring civil union legislation for taxation and other select legal purposes (like granting certain Powers of Attorney, certain property transfer defaults, etc.). It just seems like a convenient way to bundle a set of procedures that reflect the intentions of a number of our citizens in the US (usually when a same-sex couple is united, they want their investments and real property to be deeded over by default to their lovers, they want their lovers to make decisions for them if they are in critical condition and unable to answer for themselves, etc. etc.). Most of these can be setup one at a time (a Living Will here, a Power of Attorney there, etc.), but why not bundle a set of these together to make things easy on everyone and setup some taxation procedures for same-sex couples.

    This doesn't have anything to do with marriage or its sanctity. My marriage isn't changed one bit if two guys somewhere else in the States have their already extant relationship recognized for taxation and other legislative purposes.

    And legislating against all forms of same-sex unions or taking additional steps, as some would have it, to specifically block individuals involved in same-sex unions from what are genuine human rights, does not do a single thing to change anyone's hearts or behaviors. It doesn't do anything to introduce people to Christ or convince them that homosexual intentions and behaviors are sinful, etc.

    Legislation is impotent to transform hearts, and hearts are what Jesus is after.

    "Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. " Romans 9:31a-32b

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  7. “So I don't think that same-sex couples have any Divinely granted right to form legall[y] recognized "civil unions" (as defined by any of the various jurisdictions in American that recognize such) or the like, but I do think they have the divine right to engage in intimate relationships, and are free even to engage in intimate relationships to which they add a sinful component, such as misplaced eroticism.”

    Remember, now, “Divine right” means subject S is entitled to X in virtue of being created in the imago Dei. To show you the problem I have with your last sentence, I’ll reword it using the appropriate language of American jurisprudence: “Person S has, in virtue and accordance with being created in the imago Dei, the right to not only engage in intimate relationships (which is obviously true), but that they have the Divine right to engage in intimate relationships to which they add a sinful component, such as misplaced eroticism.”

    But clearly, no person, in virtue of being created in the imago Dei, has the right to add a sinful component to their relationships, such as misplaced eroticism.
    Perhaps you meant that men have the right (or are free) to do so in virtue of being created with free will. But the fact that persons have free will does not mean that persons have the right to license. To say so is to equivocate.

    “And legislating against all forms of same-sex unions or taking additional steps, as some would have it, to specifically block individuals involved in same-sex unions from what are genuine human rights, does not do a single thing to change anyone's hearts or behaviors. It doesn't do anything to introduce people to Christ or convince them that homosexual intentions and behaviors are sinful, etc.”

    I agree that all individuals have the Divine right to Will their property to whomever they choose. But I deny that homosexuals have certain Divine rights and entitlements in virtue of the nature of their relationship. As such, I think its contra American jurisprudence to support the recognition of entitlements that certain relationships don’t, ipso facto, have. And further, to believe, in earnest, that homosexual relationships are entitled to privileges in virtue of their homosexuality, entails that you disingenuously believe that homosexuality is destructive.

    Although I believe that legislation does not change hearts, I also believe that the created order would be edified by conforming to Natural Law. This means I find it wrongheaded to support legislation fundamentally motivated by the rejection of Natural Law, and conversely, not supporting homosexual-specific privileges will, to some degree, keep the acceptability of homosexuality from proliferating.

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  8. Louis - You made a simple and straight forward case. Maybe it won't hold to legal scrutiny, but you made a simple case based upon principle. Then you let Lindsey knock you down with a straw man.

    Fortunately, you allowed Derek to bring you back, at least part way. Unfortunately, you demonstrate you have little grounding in the Scripture. For you say, "but I do think they have the divine right to engage in intimate relationships, and are free even to engage in intimate relationships to which they add a sinful component, such as misplaced eroticism." Compare your statement to the first chapter of Romans. (BTW: your quote from Romans 9 is entirely out of context).

    Furthermore, you demonstrate you do not understand the relationship of the law in society. You are correct in that the law will not transform hearts. However, as society loses vision and we become more lawless, do you think it is a small matter to eliminate our structure, law-by-law, as each becomes controversial. Using your premise, we could rid ourselves of all laws regarding shoplifting or even murder, as they will not transform the hearts of man. You don't seem to understand law points to mans' need for God - where the law is not revealed, the people perish.

    You wrote, "As always, I am open to discussion and I believe in my ability to be persuaded by good argument or sentiment." To that, I ask, "Do you have a foundation, or just an opinion?"

    It is not my intention to beat you down - and I even wrestled with commenting on this post. I know in our past conversation what I said has gone right over your head. But I think you have good intentions - just misplaced. My hope is that you will catch a vision and that you will establish a foundation, God's foundation.

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  9. "{...} and I even wrestled with commenting on this post."

    I'm terribly glad your desire to interject got the best of you.

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  10. Well thank you for going through with your comment. I have chosen to make some of my thinking public and the views expressed here are therefore vulnerable to criticism. You have given me some important things to think about, and I intend to take your comments to heart.

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  11. Louis - if you ever want to get together to talk about it I would be happy to meet with you.

    BTW - this just in. My father emailed this to me this morning. I have not had time to verify the accuracy of the claim, but it is food for thought.

    An Ominous Sign

    According to an eminent psychiatrist, Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, there has been only one time in recorded history when a society recognized marriage between persons of the same sex, and that was in the time of Noah. Although homosexuality was rampant in many ancient societies like Greece and Rome, homosexual marriage was not allowed. This observation was recently endorsed by Rabbi Aryeh Spero who explained that the Talmud reveals that the issuance of marriage contracts between men was the sin that provoked God to destroy the earth with a great flood.
    "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." Matthew 24:37 (NIV)

    Taken from "The Lamplighter", Sept-Oct 2008

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  12. cominus: I think that the finding you mentioned is interesting, in it's own right, by how is it relevant? I.e., what if it turned out that many societies legislated homosexual marriages? How would that fact have any bearing on this conversation?

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  13. Derek - sorry. It seemed an interesting adjunct to portions of this conversation.

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