President Obama Orders Hospitals to Allow Visitation Rights to Gay & Lesbian Partners

President Obama orders hospitals to allow visitation rights for gay and lesbian partners. Order welcomed by gays and lesbians across the U.S.A.

I know this will rile some elements in the Republican Party and the religious right, but kudos to President Obama on his latest order -- preventing hospitals from denying visitation rights to gay and lesbian partners. This is something President George W. Bush didn't care about one bit.

His memo to the Health and Human Services Department states:

The president's Thursday memo said, "There are few moments in our lives that call for greater compassion and companionship than when a loved one is admitted to the hospital. ... Yet every day, all across America, patients are denied the kindnesses and caring of a loved one at their sides."

Gay and lesbian Americans are "uniquely affected" by relatives-only policies at hospitals, Obama said, adding that they "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." Source: CNN

Read the president's memorandum (PDF).