Fighting for Legal Protections in Florida

While the fight for gay marriage and, more importantly, the legal protections that marriage affords couples continues in states across the country, individual counties have taken small measures to protect same-sex couples.

Last week Miami-Dade County enacted legislation to protect civil servants who are same-sex couples and have domestic partnerships. This means employment benefits like health care will be extended to those partners and children in the City of Miami. (If you remember Florida's Constitutional amendment, Proposition 2 which passed last November, limits marriage to between one man and one woman. The state of Florida continues to deny domestic partners and same-sex couples the rights and protections of married couples.)

Commissioner Marc Sarnoff said, "This is nothing more than treating people equally. I am proud to say our city is doing the right thing."  The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force already praised the county in May for their efforts for equality.

This gay rights rhetoric out of Miami may be due to the attention Janice Langbehn is getting in South Florida. She is suing Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center because she was denied access to her partner of 17 years, Lisa Marie Pond. Pond sustained an aneurysm while the family was on vacation in Florida and was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital. After eight hours of being denied access to her partner's side, Langbehn and their three children were was allowed access for five minutes while a priest performed last rites on  39-year-old Pond who died shortly after.

Hospital staffers said Langbehn was denied access at the beginning because of the hospital's visitations policy, which is limited to immediate family and spouses. Langbehn even had the proper paperwork (health care proxy/power-of-attorney documents) faxed to the hospital saying she had legal rights to her partner's care, but the hospital still refused.

Last year, Langbehn and her attorney (Lambda Legal) filed documents in a Florida court claiming emotional distress and negligence by Jackson Memorial. It's now two years since her partner's death and the case is still pending litigation.

You can read Lamda's case against Jackson Memorial Hospital here.