Tag: Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
DOMA & When Gay Couples Travel
By Dan Kirk on 03/31/2009 @ 01:26 PM
Sometimes it is the thing we don’t think about that comes and bites us in the rear. My partner Robert has been undergoing chemotherapy to treat Mantle Cell Lymphoma. In February he finished the last round of regular chemo and we decided to take a celebratory trip to Walt Disney World in Florida to celebrate.
Disney is one of one Robert’s favorite things in the universe. When we were first dating, one of his first gifts to me was an Annual Pass to California’s Disneyland. “You’ll need it if we stick together.” That is what he said, and it proved absolutely true. We make a few trips each year to California’s Disney parks and so far we make it to Disney World once every three years (eventually we’ll get to EuroDisney and the parks in Hong Kong as well as Tokyo). So, for him, this trip was extra special. It’s a trip to one of his favorite places on earth, and we are celebrating his completing the chemotherapy treatment (it was also my birthday!).
The trip started out great, if a little cold. Every day the temperature got warmer and the fun increased. Robert’s energy levels were great and we left behind the fear of having to take him to an emergency room because his blood platelets drop too far (something that can happen with chemo). We had great fun at the parks, great food, and even my birthday went off splendidly.
Then I got sick.
I woke up in the middle of the night vomiting. My temperature spiked well over a hundred and by the next day, when things had gotten only a little better, we started thinking about taking me to an emergency room. We even went so far as to call the insurance company to find out which local hospital was ‘in-network’ for us to use. Luckily there was one just a few miles from the parks, and we were covered.
Only thing is I didn’t want to go.
Florida is one of those states that have not leaned on the federal DOMA legislation but on a state-passed version as well. Robert and I didn’t get married during the brief sunshine of California. We wanted to wait until 2009 when our anniversary came around and we could fully plan it out, but we do have a registered Domestic Partnership. In California there would be no doubt about who would make the medical decisions for me if it were needed. This isn’t California though, or even one of the states that recognize our relationships and would give the full faith and credit of their recognition to California’s laws recognizing us.
No, we were instead in a state that refused to even let ‘people like us’ adopt children. I was truly afraid, enough to have a nightmare, that doctors would refuse to let Robert in to see me, or would require a ‘family member’ to make a medical decision for me. It’s happened to me before (albeit under different circumstances where the country I was in refused to recognize my status as a legal adult).
My nearest living family member is my sister, and she would know better than to contadict my Robert in making such decisions, but to have to go through her would have been demeaning. However, after her there are quite a few Aunts and Uncles that would take great pleasure in cutting Robert out of the equation for sheer verisimilitude and to be able to tell me “I told you so!” about their staunch religious beliefs and how no gay relationship can ever be as ‘real’ as others.
Now, the rational part of my brain (now that I am recovering) says that no such nightmare scenario would likely have happened. Sure, this is Florida with all its anti-gay laws on the books, but they know better than to do stuff like that, right? Still, the fact that with DOMA in place they CAN do such things sends shivers through my spine.
I chose NOT to seek medical attention even though I was vomiting for two days out of a simple fear that they would refuse to recognize Robert’s right to make my decisions for me. What must it be like for the gay and lesbian couples that live here? What about all those other states that are the same way?
As we prepared to leave Orlando and head back home to California, we sat in the resort’s cafeteria area until our bus was ready to leave. The room was filled with hundreds of people from all over the United States, and even all over the world. If they get sick did they have to worry about things the way we did?
No, of course not. That couple from Canada over there…they’re a guy and a girl so their marriage will be recognized if one of them gets sick. See that family over there? If the child gets sick either parent can take them to the hospital, not like that family over there where the kids have two moms and Florida won’t recognize one of those mothers as having legal authority over their children.
This is just another example of how DOMA has made us into a two-tiered society for the past twelve years. Let’s get this thing ended!
Dan Kirk has been active in the LGBT rights movement for sixteen years, starting with the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” debates in the early 90s. Helping to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act has become one of his highest priorities.
