Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Law gives gay couples new rights

Kelly Woods broke her ankle in three places running down a basketball court three years ago. It wasn't a life-threatening injury, but she remembers feeling "afraid and alone" in the emergency room as much as any pain she felt in her body.

This was because her girlfriend, Stephanie Washington, was stopped at the door and told only family could visit. Woods has no family in the Las Vegas Valley.

That won't happen again, now that a bill has been signed into law making it easier for unmarried couples to visit each other in the hospital as well as decide about burial, cremation and organ donation.

The law was hailed as a boon for gay couples, particularly after the landslide victory last November for Question 2, which defined marriage as being only between a man and a woman and was opposed by gay rights groups.

"It is a step a little closer for gay and unmarried couples to have a little more dignity," said Bob Bellis, executive director for the Gay and Lesbian Community Center in Las Vegas.

The law, which became effective last week, allows a patient to assign visitation rights to another person, as well as the right to decide about burial, cremation and organ donation. The latter requires the presence of a notary to be considered legal; visitation rights can be assigned without a notary.

Before the law was passed, a member of an unmarried couple would have to obtain powers of attorney through a lawyer to be able to make decisions about the other member after death. Visitation rights depended on the situation and even the hospital, advocates said.

"Most people don't have an attorney and this law ... makes it easier for anybody to do," said Dale Erquiaga, board member of the nonprofit Equal Rights Nevada and one of the bill's authors.

Though the bill passed both houses of the Legislature unanimously and received support from a wide cross-section of groups -- including the American Association of Retired Persons and some of the state's hospitals and mortuaries -- its authors and advocates drew little attention to the law until recently, fearing it would draw unnecessary controversy.

"We wanted the law passed quietly, since these issues tend to be contentious, particularly if people don't understand them," Erquiaga said.

There was good reason for that caution. The bill's original language proved to be a point of contention and echoed some of the issues brought up by Question 2.

This occurred when Erquiaga borrowed language defining family members from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization, a national group.

"The language basically said that a person's family is someone who plays a significant role in the life of a patient," Erquiaga said.

But Richard Ziser, president of the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage, which pushed Question 2 -- argued before the Legislature that the language was unnecessary to achieve the bill's intent. It was removed.

"Our only point is that you just don't inadvertently assign someone to be a member of your family," Ziser said, adding the stricken language could have paved the road toward legalizing marriages between people of the same gender.

"They knew we wouldn't like that language. Once ... there is somewhere in Nevada law that you can point to someone as your family member, it could affect other laws," he said.

The decision to cut language from the bill led Ande Rice, chairwoman of Nevada Equal Rights, to characterize the law as a minor victory for the gay community.

"I see it as a victory for all citizens of Nevada," she said.

"There's a real struggle for getting more rights for gays in the state, and I don't see them coming easily."

Meanwhile, Woods and Washington have already done the paperwork required by the law, which is SB386 and can be found on the Legislature's website leg.state.nv.us/72nd/Reports.

Woods hopes she or her partner is never alone in a local emergency room again.

"Nobody wants someone you care about to go through that," she said.

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy