Victorola of the Daleks

( Spoilers upon spoilers for Doctor Who 5x03 - Victory of the Daleks )

The real cost of the so-called “ick factor”

So here’s a scenario. Follow along if you can.

Imagine that you’re in a committed, long-term relationship. I’m not talking months. Think decades. Think ‘building a life and then retiring together’ long-term and committed. You share a home and you take care of one another as best you can. And, because you and your partner want to ensure that your wishes are kept, the two of you have invested in legal documentation (powers of attorney, advance directives, etc.) to aid you in an emergency, and at the end of your lives together.

One day, your partner is injured in a fall. You seek medical attention, but once your partner is admitted, you’re first refused access in spite of legal documentation. In fact, the county treats your partner as if there is no next of kin.

And then the county puts you into a nursing home — a separate one, in fact, from the one that your partner is in — and sells all of your shared assets (none of which are yours in the eyes of the county, by the way, since you’re just a “roommate”) and terminates your lease.

Your partner dies three months after taking that fall. Alone, because you’re confined to a different facility and haven’t got visitation rights. You are left — in spite of decades of legally and personally documented partnership — with nothing: no home (aside from the one the county put you in), none of your possessions, and no assets.

This is what Sonoma County did to two men called Harold and Clay. It took concerted efforts on the part of a court-appointed attorney to get Clay — aged 77, and Harold’s surviving partner of over 20 years — released from the nursing home Sonoma County effectively imprisoned him in while they unlawfully stripped him of his assets and refused to acknowledge Harold and Clay’s legal documents that aimed to give them even just a fraction of the rights married couples receive.

It’s unconscionable. I defy anyone who believes him or herself to be ethical, compassionate, or good to read this story and then say that anyone should be treated this way. Anyone.

And yet, this is the logical conclusion of a legal system that does not recognize the civil rights of LGBTQ people. And it’s sick.

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com