I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Visiting loved ones in the hospital when you don’t happen to be immediate family or legally married is about to become easier. President Barack Obama has mandated that any hospital participating in the Medicare or Medicaid programs allow hospital visitation rights to same-sex partners or other designated visitors. In a memorandum issued yesterday, Obama requested that the Secretary of Health and Human Services develop the new rule, which would cover the designated visitors of anyone admitted to the hospital.
For instance, the rules would also benefit widows or widowers who rely on friends, or members of religious orders who aren’t able to be there for one another when admitted to the hospital, Obama said in the memo. The memo singled out as “uniquely affected” gay and lesbian Americans as beneficiaries of the new policy:
Often, a widow or widower with no children is denied the support and comfort of a good friend. Members of religious orders are sometimes unable to choose someone other than an immediate family member to visit them and make medical decisions on their behalf. Also uniquely affected are gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives — unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated.
Some Gay and Lesbian rights advocates hailed the decision, with a representative of the Human Rights Campaign telling The New York Times that the new rule making is a “huge deal”:
“It’s a huge deal,” said David Smith, vice president of policy for the Human Rights Campaign, which worked with the White House to develop the memorandum, in an interview Thursday night. “Nearly every hospital in the country will now be required to provide hospital visitation rights to LGBT families. It’s an enormous step. In the absence of equal marriage rights in most jurisdictions, this step provides an essential right to LGBT families for a gay person or a lesbian person to spend time with their partner in a critical situation.”
Others called it a small but welcome step. Representatives of Freedom to Marry, a group that works for legalization of same-sex marriage, welcomed the news in a statement but said that a piecemeal approach to gay and lesbian rights would take up more time than American families can afford.
“The Administration’s step today, though small, will mean a lot to many people in harm’s way,” said Evan Wolfson, Executive Director of Freedom to Marry. “… Of course, the real cure is to end exclusion from marriage, pass the federal Respective for Marriage Act, and provide all families the full measure of protections. Piecemeal steps, addressing one protection at a time, will take up a lot more time than either the Administration or American families can afford.”
