Editor’s note: The Forbes story that tipped us off is from last year — we neglected to read the fine print. Last year, Scott Walker tried to kill same-sex couples’ hospital visitation rights, but his attempts were defeated. We apologize for the error, and have amended the content below to reflect our error.
Salon writer Glenn Greenwald tweeted the same Forbes story today, so we’re in good company.
Of course, even MSNBC makes these kinds of mistakes too…
Governor Walker, did, however, sign several bills into law on Good Friday, including a repeal of workers’ rights to sue, a bill mandating only abstinence-only sex education, a law that places new state limits on abortion.
But bottom line, we were wrong, and we apologize for the mistake.
Of course, if you’re here via Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, just ask yourself how a news organization that is forced to shutter a century-old nameplate like News of the World and has high-level executives resigning and/or arrested, a news organization that is associated with the word “hacking,” can have the audacity to poke fun at a news organization that made an error, admitted it, corrected it, and apologized?
Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker last year moved to prevent same-sex couples from accessing their legal hospital visitation rights, despite both Wisconsin state law and an Obama HHS mandate. Same-sex couples would not have been able to be recognized as next of kin — unless they have previously taken drastic legal measures, and unless those are accepting at the hospital — during emergency room visits, or even during routine hospital procedures in Wisconsin.
The story below is via a Forbes article from last May:
“Walker is literally going out of his way to prevent two people in a loving, committed relationship from visiting one another at the hospital. In other words, at what is quite likely a couple’s darkest hour, Scott Walker wants to impose legal restrictions barring two people from being with one another. Imagine that your wife or your husband was in the hospital and you were legally prohibited from visiting them. Is this the role we want our government to play in our lives?,” Erik Kain at Forbes writes, adding:
Via Doug Mataconis, who describes Walker’s actions as “despicably cruel†we get this news out of Wisconsin:
Madison – Gov. Scott Walker believes a new law that gives gay couples hospital visitation rights violates the state constitution and has asked a judge to allow the state to stop defending it.
Democrats who controlled the Legislature in 2009 changed the law so that same-sex couples could sign up for domestic partnership registries with county clerks to secure some – but not all – of the rights afforded married couples.
Wisconsin Family Action sued last year in Dane County circuit court, arguing that the registries violated a 2006 amendment to the state constitution that bans gay marriage and any arrangement that is substantially similar.
Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen refused to defend the lawsuit, saying he agreed the new law violated the state constitution. Then-Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, hired Madison attorney Lester Pines to defend the state.
Walker, a Republican, replaced Doyle in January and fired Pines in March. On Friday, Walker filed a motion to stop defending the case.
Doug asks, “Is the GOP hatred for gays so pervasive that they could really be this cold and heartless?†To which I can only answer: yes, apparently it is, at least when we’re talking about the GOP in Scott Walker’s Wisconsin.
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And Republicans pretend they are the party of limited government. What terrific frauds. What a ludicrous illusion they have cast about themselves. Somehow the media and the American electorate keeps falling for the same trick. Liberty for me but not for thee. Low taxes and a government bent on preventing even this small shred of basic, human decency.
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