For instance, we ask people to declare their Personal Directive (DNR versus Resuscitate instructions and so forth). However we do not ask them to declare who is a trusted insider versus everyone else. Just getting the contact person/next of kin often isn’t sufficient.

We’re talking about something that’s a little more important than who a person has accepted as a ‘Friend’ on Facebook, you know? However that’s moving in the direction of what I’m talking about even if it’s a relatively trivial example.

I cancelled my subscription to Scientific American in the 1980′s when they started pushing “progressive” causes. I’m not a heterosexual myself. But I stopped buying the NY Times when Punch Sulzbuger instituted his one pro-gay article per section per day policy. I don’t need condescending science journalists looking out for what they think is in my interest, thank you.

Please stick to science reporting.

If I want politically correct pieties I’ll watch reruns of Boston Legal and Murphy Brown.

What is actually happening is that hospitals sometimes prohibit all but “immediate family” from visitation. Since homosexual sex partners are not considered “immediate family” in many places, they are banned RIGHT ALONG WITH EVERYONE ELSE WHO IS BANNED.

Having said that, I agree that the best way to handle this is to let the ill CHOOSE whom they wish to see them. The making of this into a homosexual rights campaign is only political…

Sociology is the science of studying society. Prejudice is a subject that falls under the heading of sociology, as well as psychology. The habit/policy of preventing GLBTQ people from visiting their spouses in the hospital is a matter of prejudice.

So, yes, this is a science story.