Phreaks Not Welcomed

After reading the article that Caitlin astutely found and shared with all of us (thanks Caitlin !!!) …

I figured I was left with no choice but to read the actual bill that was passed …

Since it would apply to me,

Just great !! *oozing extensive quantities of sarcasm*

Anyways … HB-5006 was passed on April 21, 2004 with sufficient votes to give it immediate effect (meaning that as soon as the governor signs the final bill, it would go into effect immediately).

The Senate version of the bill is currently being considered.

The House and Senate are both controlled by Republicans, but note, in the House vote the bill was given “immediate effect” status because it was passed with 2/3 of the votes cast, which only occurred because enough Democrats also supported the bill. In case any of my local friends are curious, all of our respective representatives voted in favor of the amendment. Bastards.

The governor is a Democrat, but that doesn’t mean she won’t sign the bill if it makes it to her desk.

This is all about politics, and in politics, no one is pure.

Anyways …

As far as the substance of the bill …

It doesn’t appear to be a “let a person die because we don’t like their disease” bill … since it specifically says that care cannot be refused because of the disease (page 6, line 16); and,

It also doesn’t appear to be a “let a person die because they are gay/lesbian/trans and even though they are in immediate need of treatment and I’m the only one around, I have problems with such people and don’t want to treat them” bill … since it specifically says that the objection to providing care shall not be asserted if immediate action is required and no other health care provider is available (page 6, lines 4 – 8).

No, it appears to be mainly a “As part of my normal practice, I don’t want to have to treat people I consider phreaks or heathens” bill … since as long as the care provider provides adequate notice as specified in the bill, a care provider simply does not have to provide care for anyone they have objections to based on religious, ethical or moral grounds (page 3, line 25).

Now the bill doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it’d piss me off when I first read about its passage …

It’s clearly a case of mainly political posturing to the Michigan Catholic Conference, which pushed for the bill, and to whom neither of the dominant political parties are beneath selling out and accommodating …

No, what bothers me most I think is that a religion that purports to teach of the kindness and understanding of its God’s son,

Who in his day allegedly embraced, cared for and treated those with ailments and illnesses which society so abhorred at the time that the sufferers were often ostracized from their communities …

Yes, this same religion that promotes that the principles and traits of this person should be the goal of all to follow …

Actively seeks to pass legislation so they can’t lose lawsuits when they refuse to treat in their many privately-owned hospitals in the state those who suffer from ailments and illnesses which they believe were caused by acts which they so completely ahbor.

Nice *oozing even more extensive quantities of sarcasm*

Now granted, though the bill contains language within it to allow the Michigan Catholic Conference and those voting in favor of it to maintain it is not a …

“Let a person die because we don’t like their disease“, nor a …

Let a person die because they are gay/lesbian/trans and even though they are in immediate need of treatment and I’m the only one around, I have problems with such people and don’t want to treat them” …

In practice, that’s not quite the case,

Because the bill fails to provide direction as to who decides if a moral, ethical or religious ground applies and how that is decided.

(Not to mention it appears to allow each care provider carte blanche when identifying a moral, ethical or religious ground which they find applicable … effectively allowing care to be denied to homosexuals, heterosexuals, transsexuals, Christians, Jew, muslims, lobster eaters, abortionists, Borg, blah, blah, blah, at the whim of whatever a care provider claims is offensive to them.)

What if St. Disregard The Ill Hospital maintains a person is gay and they don’t have to treat them because they object to it on moral, ethical or religious grounds?

Who decides if the person is gay?

What if the person says they aren’t, yet the hospital says they are?

Does it matter if the hospital is forming its opinion the patient is gay because he has AIDS?

The bill doesn’t say they can’t use the person’s disease to draw a conclusion to support an ethical, moral, religious ground to which they object,

It just says that they can’t object because of the disease.

So … St. Disregard The Ill Hospital can’t say they won’t treat you because you have AIDS, but they can say they won’t treat you because they think you are gay and they think you are gay because you have AIDS.

Then there is the question if St. Disregard The Ill Hospital can pick and choose which of their many moral, ethical or religious grounds they want to claim are so bad as to deny care?

Say for example a chuch says transsexuality is a moral sin,

And they also say that pedophilia is a moral sin …

Can St. Disregard The Ill Hospital deny care to their transsexual parishoner,

Yet provide care to a molesting priest ??

Or do they have to deny care to all those that engage in any behavior they oppose for moral, ethical or religious reasons?

Who knows the answers to these questions, the bill just isn’t clear …

And if the bill eventually passes,

Somehow these questions along with many others will have to be clarified,

Either in the Senate bill,

The final joint bill,

Or by a lawsuit interpreting the question.

What a waste of time, resources, and lives …

Just to perpetuate one’s hypocrisy.

I’m certainly going to have company in hell.