Candace

Talmadge

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July 8, 2008

Anti-Gay Cruelty Surely Isn’t God’s Plan

It’s every gay person’s worst nightmare in horrific waking reality.

You and your partner are out of state on vacation. Your partner unexpectedly collapses and is rushed to the emergency room, dying. And you cannot get in to see your partner – even though your friends back home fax to the hospital your partner’s legally valid medical power of attorney naming you as guardian in just this kind of tragic circumstance.

This outrage happened in Florida in February 2007 to Janice Langbehn when her partner of 18 years, Lisa Pond, collapsed just before the couple and three of their four children were to board a cruise ship. Pond, 39, was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, but when Lengbehn and the children arrived, the physicians and staff refused to allow them to see Pond for nearly eight hours except for one five-minute visit arranged by a Catholic priest.

The doctors at Jackson Memorial – Alois Zauner and Carlos Alberto Cruz – even acknowledged there was no medical reason to deny Langbehn and the children the right to visit Pond, who died 18 hours after suffering a massive stroke.

The social worker on duty, Garnett Frederick, reportedly told Langbehn that she was in an antigay city and state, and that she could not expect to get any information about Pond or acknowledgement as family. Really. After almost two decades of living together and raising four children, the two women still did not qualify as family.

To pile on, when Langbehn sought a death certificate for Pond in order to obtain life insurance and Social Security benefits for Pond’s children, she was denied by both the state of Florida and the Dade County Medical Examiner.

Langbehn has sued the hospital, the two physicians and the social worker in U.S. District Court, asking for at least $75,000 and charging them with neglect and “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

Imagine not being able to say good-bye to your loved one or hold her hand as she slips away because the hospital and physicians don’t approve of your relationship with her. What were these people thinking? Did they believe that such smug, righteous cruelty wins them brownie points with God?

But, speaking of the Almighty and homosexuals, one of the staunchest anti-gay advocates recently took umbrage at a speech made in 2006 by Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama. The Illinois senator, in that speech, noted that in Leviticus, certain passages seem to suggest that slavery is acceptable but eating shellfish an abomination. He was trying to make a point about the vagaries of interpreting the Bible.

That didn’t sit well with James Dobson, head of the Focus on the Family evangelical media empire and a loud, long-winded anti-gay crusader. Dobson criticized Obama for wrongly citing Old Testament text and dietary codes because they “no longer apply” to the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. 

In the Gospels, Jesus says exactly zip about homosexuality. The Bible’s anti-gay passages are in the very priestly codes in Leviticus that Dobson says “no longer apply” in slamming Obama. Logically, then, if the support for slavery and prohibitions against shellfish from Leviticus are valid no more, then the anti-gay parts of Leviticus also “no longer apply.” 

In other words, Dobson completely invalidated conservative Christians’ entire, Leviticus-based argument against homosexuals. Jesus also undercut the Levitical dietary codes when he urged his listeners to care more about what came out of their mouths than what they put into them. That’s because what comes out of a person’s mouth reveals what’s in a person’s heart. 

Out of the mouths of those doctors and social worker flowed the vilest form of nastiness to people desperate for help and comfort during a loved one’s dying hours. It’s enough to make God and Jesus weep all over again. 

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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