Finally, a decades-overdue move to allow hospitalized patients to choose who should be allowed in to see them! President Obama issued a presidential directive Thursday night making federal funding contingent on nondiscrimination in visitation, and providing much greater respect for patients’ wishes in carrying out healthcare decisions.

This is a victory not only for gays and lesbians, but for anyone who “chooses their family” through means other than legal marriage, including many elderly, or those with common-law companions.

The above link includes a video interview with a woman who broke into tears, remembering that she was barred from visiting her dying female partner, and who said she felt like she’d failed her partner of 17 years, because she wasn’t there to hold her hand.

Obama is to be commended for this. It should have been done by FDR, or Kennedy, or Johnson, or even Clinton.