Some Justice For Clay Greene

I first wrote about Clay Greene and Harold Scull HERE.

Clay and Harold were a gay couple living together, relatively peacefully as you will soon learn, until Harold had an accident. Then Clay was not allowed to see Harold because they weren't a legal couple. And because they weren't a legal couple, in order to pay Harold's hospital bill, the county stepped in and sold all of Clay and Harold's things without permission.

They effectively stole from Clay.

And now Sonoma County has agreed to pay $600,000 to Clay Greene because county social workers kept him from seeing his dying partner in the hospital because he was gay.

Greene accused social workers of denying him hospital visitation rights to see Harold, despite signed wills, medical declarations and powers of attorney naming each other as spouses--the couple was not married nor registered as domestic partners.

The lawsuit also alleged that after Harold Scull passed away, social workers forced a distraught and grieving Clay Greene into a nursing home and sold the couple's property, including art and heirlooms.

The county's lawyer, Gregory Spaulding, of course denied the discrimination claims but did admit mistakes in selling the couple's property.

Mistakes.

Keeping a couple apart when one of them is dying is a mistake?
Forcing the surviving partner into a nursing home is a mistake?
Selling off everything the couple owned, without the permission of either man, is a mistake?

In the interests of fairness, social workers say they kept Clay Greene away from Harold Scull because of previous domestic violence allegations. According to a sheriff's report, Scull went to authorities with a black eye and said Greene threatened to kill him, though Scull was later unwilling to lodge a formal complaint.

Spaulding said, noting that the plaintiff removed the discrimination allegations from the lawsuit three weeks ago, "The county remains confident in its position that there was no discrimination in this case."

But what is most troubling is the idea of county employees swooping into a man's house and selling all of his belongings. Under the law, county officials are permitted to sell property worth $5,000 or less to cover medical expenses, but Clay Greene and Harold Scull's belongings earned more than $25,000 at auction.

Spaulding said errors in that case have led to revised policies at the Public Guardian's office, and that the county settled the case Thursday to avoid further expense: "It just made economic sense to stop the bleeding. To end the case and avoid all expenses and costs."

Or the embarrassment of what you did to Clay Greene, and to Harold Scull.

Funny, though, this might have never happened had gay marriage been legal.

This Could Be Any One Of Us

Clay and Harold have been partners for twenty years.

Clay and Harold worked hard to protect their legal rights as a same-sex couple denied the rights of marriage.

Wills. Powers of attorney. Medical directives.

All naming the other.

Harold, 88, was in poor health, but still living with Clay, 77, who took care of him as couples are apt to do.

But then Harold fell down the steps of their home and was hospitalized.

With their medical directives in place, Clay should have been consulted, and, at the very least, kept informed of Harold's condition, care and treatment.

No.

Instead, Sonoma county health care workers refused to allow Clay to see Harold in the hospital. The county then made matters worse, by taking each of the men and placing them in separate nursing homes.

Sonoma county health care officials treated Harold as though he had no family, and actually went to court seeking the right to make financial decisions on his behalf.

There was no Clay, as far as they were concerned. There were no legal documents. There was no twenty year union.

They even stated, in court, that Clay was only Harold's "roommate."

And while the courts denied the efforts of Sonoma County, they did grant them limited access to one of Harold's bank accounts to pay for his hospitalization.

And it gets more sickening.

They disregarded Clay and Harold's relationship completely.

They went into Clay and Harold's home, without determining the value of the household items, without determining who owned what, they auctioned off everything that belonged to the couple.

All of it gone without so much as a question to either man.

And then the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will. County workers terminated Clay and Harold's lease and surrendered the home they had shared for many years to the landlord.
Three months later, Harold died in the hospital.

Clay missed the final act of his partner's life because he didn't have one simple legal document which would have made it impossible for Sonoma County, California, to abuse him, and steal from him an deny him the chance to say goodbye to his partner.

No marriage license.

All Clay has left of twenty years with Harold is a photo album Harold made for him during his final three months.

If you aren't weeping, you have no soul.

If you aren't angry, you have no heart.

There but for the grace of god, goes any, and perhaps, every, gay couple in this country who is not allowed the simple right that every heterosexual person has: to marry the person they love.

Sickening.