...appreciative of all the work my mom and her siblings put into letting my grandfather live at home for as long as possible. He ultimately died at home, so it was definitely worth the months and months spent gently convincing him that he needed various types of help.

It's a tragic story and I sincerely hope that Clay wins his court case. The way the LGBT community is treated in the United States (and around most of the world, for that matter) is deplorable. Everyone - no exceptions - deserves fair and equal treatment under the law.

That being said, I agree with JulyFlame. We are not getting all the facts. The website on which the story is posted has a rather obvious bias. The story itself is loaded with images of pathos designed to tweak the heart-strings of the reader.

I'd like to read interviews with both Clay and representatives of the county to find out their perspectives. I want to read the reasoning behind the judgements against these two men. I want to know as many of the facts as possible. To quote one of my favorite authors, "Data, data, data! I can't make bricks without clay."

Whenever I start developing a dangerous amount of faith in human nature, I read something like this and remember exactly why I hate people so much.

Clay had BETTER win that lawsuit, is all I have to say. And I hope he can manage to make sure that things like this don't happen again.

I honestly don't know what to say apart from that.

...that reading this made me tear up a little. I find it hard to believe, or understand why, the county could simply take everything those two had and sell it. It's inhuman, and it's practically stealing.
I'm tempted to exploit Godwin's Law at this point. Out of respect, I will not. But in all seriousness, as an American, I find myself completely ashamed. Heck, last Friday, my high school held a Day of Silence in protest to the way homosexuals are being treated. I didn't think much of it at the time, and I didn't participate, but reading this made me realize how poignant their message was. On a day-to-day basis, I don't really think about these kinds of issues, because my school is extremely diverse, and with that diversity comes a certain level of liberalness. One of my best friends is openly, and unapologetically homosexual. I literally can't imagine anyone looking down on him for it, because everyone finds it pretty much impossible to dislike him.

*takes off glasses, wipes eyes, and steps down from her soap box*

Anyway... now I'm all depressed again.

I can't believe people would do something like this. They did everything they could, and still this happened. This is just... I don't even have the words.

Whatever your moral stance on their lifestyle, no one should be treated like they were. Maybe the story left parts out, stories usually do, but really, I see this incident as a commentary on the legal situation of most elderly people, regardless of their lifestyle.

It isn't only homosexual couples who are living together unmarried either. There are heterosexual couples who did not want to re-marry due to loss of income, or attachment to a deceased spouse. There are even instances of couples forced to have their marriages legally dissolved to be able to qualify for needed government assistance. Then there are sibling groups who have lived together for many years, because their spouses are gone. I knew a set of twin sisters who lived together for 30 years after their spouses died. They were the only person the other one had due to the early deaths of their children.

Maybe if these men had been a het married couple, the county would have allowed them into the same nursing home, but I have even seen elderly married couples split up due to differing levels of care needed. And even a married couple would have most likely faced the same forced entry into the nursing home and the loss of possessions.

I'm sure there is an exception to this that someone can point out. I am generalizing--Nursing homes in general are truly appalling places for the residents and the caregivers. Unless there is outside family actively involved-as in random near daily visits-the elderly patient is very unlikely to receive good care. As far as the caregivers go, those in the lowest rungs who are actually giving the full body care that the neediest patients require, are paid minimum wage and assigned so may tasks that it is impossible to do more than just basic assembly line personal care. Until there are rules set up to require that adequate staffing be maintained (and turnover will always be high at minimum wage, think of the work actually being done by these people), the owners will continue to exploit both ends-the patients by taking everything they ever owned and the lowest level workers by under-staffing and under-paying.

This is an awful situation, made worse by the lack of humanity shown to these men, but it should bring the focus not just to elderly gay couples, but to all the elderly who are just a fall away from loss of all their legal rights. It is a situation that defies all ethical bounds, as far as I am concerned, and I'm glad Bronwyn pointed it out. Awareness of a problem is the first step to solving a problem.

I feel so sorry for those poor people. From how that sounds, they have been treated very unfairly and unjustly.

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

For sure, things were done and handled wrong by that county. But at the same time, I'm wondering what the article left out because it feels like there are important details missing.

...is this board really the right place for political statements? Not trying to offend, just asking.