Gay visitation order shows how Obama brings big change with small actions

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/16/AR2010041604772.html?hpid=topnews

By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 17, 2010

President Obama's decision Thursday night to grant same-sex couples hospital visitation rights is the latest and most visible example of a strategy to make concrete steps toward equality for gays and lesbians without sparking a broad cultural debate or a fight with Congress.

The approach has angered some of the president's fiercest supporters, who are eager for bold change, but other politically savvy activists have encouraged Obama to act in small ways to reshape government rules and regulations on behalf of gays and lesbians.

Soon after Obama's election, staffers from the Human Rights Campaign presented the transition team with a list of 70 actions the president could take without congressional approval.

The activists sat in a room at the transition's headquarters as a stream of soon-to-be officials with the departments of Justice, State, Labor and Health and Human Services rotated in for discussions, according to several of those present. Melody Barnes, who now heads the president's domestic policy council, sat in, too.

Over the next several months, the administration quietly began acting on the recommendations: The State Department started issuing embassy ID cards to same-sex partners of diplomats; Housing and Urban Development ended discrimination in housing assistance programs; HHS pledged to change its policies regarding HIV-positive visitors and immigrants.

And then, last May, HRC staffers got a call from Obama's legal office. Top officials in the White House had seen a gut-wrenching story about a lesbian couple who had been kept apart in the hospital when one collapsed and died. It was time to act, they decided.

FULL 2 page story at link.

this. It takes a level of mean-spirited behavior to prevent someone from being with their live partner at the end of his/her days.
I saw that lady who encountered the despicable hospital staff in Florida and could not believe that people could be so nasty.

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Bravo Mr. President.

They have already implemented many but appear not to publicize it much. Which probably means that those in the gay community need to communicate with each other when they find out so they all know. Probably the best step at this time. It will lead to more acceptance and make it more difficult to reverse any of the actions taken if a scumbag President were elected. This in my opinion would work faster than trying to legislate it considering how slow it works.