Make sure your tissues are handy for this one.

 Discrimination hurts -- more so in hospitals

By LEONARD PITTS JR.

lpitts@miamiherald.com

Your wife is dying.

One moment everything was fine. You were in your stateroom on the cruise ship -- it was to be an anniversary cruise -- unpacking your things. The kids were in the adjoining stateroom playing with your wife. Suddenly, they banged on the door crying that mom was hurt.

So now you're in the hospital -- Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital -- waiting for word, and it's not coming. They tell you, Joe (we'll call you Joe), you can't be with her. You plead with them, to no avail. No, Joe, sorry, Joe, we can't tell you anything.

One hour turns to two, two to four, four to six. Your wife is dying, and no one she loves is there.

Finally, in the eighth hour, you reach her bedside. You are just in time to stand beside the priest as he administers last rites.

Your wife is dead. Her name was Lisa Marie Pond. She was 39.

It happened, Feb. 18-19, 2007, except that Pond's spouse was not a man named Joe, but a woman named Janice. And there's one other detail. Janice Langbehn who, as it happens, is an emergency room social worker from Lacey, Wash., says the first hospital employee she spoke with was an emergency room social worker. She thought, given their professional connection, they might speak a common language.

Instead, she says, he told her, ''I need you to know you are in an anti-gay city and state, and you won't get to know about Lisa's condition or see her'' -- then turned and walked away.

For the record, this is an increasingly anti-gay nation, to judge from all the mean-spirited amendments and legislation that have made scapegoats and boogie men of them in recent years, including Florida's Marriage Protection Amendment, which passed last November.

Langbehn is suing the hospital for negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. In a hearing last week, Jackson asked a judge to dismiss the suit. A ruling is pending. Attorney Andrew Boese, who represents Jackson, says the hospital ''absolutely'' disputes Langbehn's characterization of her encounter with the social worker. And as for visiting Pond's bedside: ``Our first duty should be to patients, particularly in an emergency room. The decision to allow someone into a trauma bay should be a medical decision. It shouldn't be a question for a jury . . . ''

All that notwithstanding, it strains credulity to believe that Joe would have spent eight hours barred from his wife's bedside as Janice was from hers.

Politicians and alleged religious leaders have routinely invited us to hate gay people and call it morality. They have taught us to frame gay lives in cloudy abstracts of tradition and values. But this isn't abstract, is it?

No, it is Janice and Lisa, meeting in college and falling in love, 20 years ago. It is a ''holy union'' service in a local church, friends serving as maid of honor and ''best man.'' ''We were dirt poor,'' says Langbehn, ``but we pulled it off.''

It is taking in foster kids no one else wants, drug babies, HIV babies, babies with fetal alcohol syndrome. It is adopting four of them and Lisa deciding she wants to be a stay-at-home mom and Janice saying OK, and wondering how the six of them will manage on a social worker's salary. It is Janice, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and Lisa, bashful Lisa, becoming the family extrovert, cheering the kids at ''toddler tumbling time'' shepherding them to swimming lessons and story time at the library.

It is Lisa, who loved pecan sandies, the movie Beaches and Mitch Albom's book Tuesdays With Morrie, stricken by an aneurysm. It is Lisa, for eight hours, dying alone.

It would be good if someone remembered her next time we are invited to hate an abstract. And remember Janice, who could not ache more deeply even if her name were Joe.

Nope Laura-- it was Chris questioning the panel whether waterboarding Scooter Libby would make him tell the truth about Cheney's involvement in calling for the outing Valerie Plame. The way Chris asked the question was dead pan and the panelists were discussing the efficacy of waterboarding as in--- what type of information might Libby provide, if any, would it be accurate. They were all in on the joke, yet having a serious discussion about torture as it might apply to US citizens, and the ridiculousness of using the technique. I'm not doing the segment justice .I tried to find a clip on you tube but couldn't. Chris wasn't advocating  waterboarding, he was merely throwing out a hypothetical using an American (since there's a lot of prejudice against the Islamic community) to try to make a point against torture.

Get the butter, burris is s toast. I still think he's probably less corrupt and more like a sober Otis from  the Andy Griffith show (which doesn't make for a competent senator).

Did you see all the people out in the cold, wet weather to greet our president?  When Bush visited canada the protesters were out! That's got to help national security and the economy in a tacit way-- getting more flies with honey than vinegar.

Laura- there's just no way to put a positive spin on the cartoon. Did you think the segment on hardball yesterday was as funny as I did? I laughed so hard I cried at the humor. I thought I was watching Bill Maher, Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert.

GREAT NEWS http://www.undispatch.com/node/7729

I think Obama is going to be up there on Mt. Rushmore one day! We're back on the side of civil rights.

In late December the United Nations General Assembly held a symbolic vote on a statement calling for the universal decriminalization of homosexuality. France spearheaded the resolution, which was a 13 point declaration "to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention." The statement received 60 votes in support, mostly from Europe and South America. Opposing the resolution, were the United States, the Holy See, and members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. At the time, the Bush administration couched its objection to the measure in legal technicalities.

Well, that was then. This is now: At the so-called "Durban Review Conference" on racism and xenophonia underway in Geneva, Europe again put forward language condemning "all forms of discrimination and all other human rights violations based on sexual orientation." According to UN Watch, "The Czech Republic on behalf of the E.U., with the support of New Zealand, the United States, Colombia, Chili on behalf of the South American states, the Netherlands, Argentina and a few others, took the floor in support." (emphasis mine).

The efforts to include language on discrimination based on sexual orientation ended up failing for lack of support from non-western countries. Still, it's relieving to see that the United States is now back on the side of the enlightened on this issue of basic human rights.

We don';t even need to dignify Reverend Hate with his last name. I believe Obama will come around to marriage-- he's a constitutional lawyer, how could he not. Loving v. Virginia is written exactly for gay marriage, even though it was what gave black and whites the right to marry each other.Even Mrs. Loving, before she died last year agreed.

Isn't he back grace? I thought he was just there for 7 hrs? I was hoping Linda would post all about what they're saying on the news.

don't forget, bill maher is back tonight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sure he'll have a lot to say.

Grace- if Maher was on regular tv he'd have a hard time trying not to use the f-bomb-- I get free hbo with my cable-- it's something about the switch to dtv

jader- perhaps the two are friends and achi was privvy to information that wasn't posted.