Gay Nurses... help!

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Hi - Wondering if any gay nurses have an insight into some concerns i've been having...

How much do you self-disclose about yourself? What do you say when patients assume you are straight, and ask you about your girlfriend/wife? How about when they assume you are gay?!? How appropriate is it to be out to them? to your co-workers? Certainly there is a double standard, as straight nurses would be 'out' at work (by talking about thier family, or feeling comfortable self-disclosing about their family), but what techniques do you use at work?

Oh, and if you respond - please mention a little about what kind of nursing you do.

Thanks so much!

EDIT: Thanks for the first several responses - I wanted to update my question a little. I guess I am asking specifically about the situation when patients ask about your personal life (which, during nursing school, we were taught not to disclose, since the focus should be on the pt. not on the nurse.) But at the same time, we have to build a healty, healing relationship... answers?

Just Cause,

Thanks for your post. And good point. However, exit polls show that the majority of people who voted for prop 8 did so for reasons that were not germaine to the issue, ie, teaching gay marriage in school. Marriage has not been taught in schools since public schools have been formed in California.

Gay people already had the right to get married and no one was teaching anything about marriage, gay, straight or otherwise. So I resubmit that this was passed under false pretenses. The wool was pulled over the eyes of California voters. The night before the election the prop 8 people covered the internet with 'save marriage rights' ads all over google adsence. This is the opposite of what proposition 8 was about. It wasn't about saving marriage rights, it was about taking marriage rights away! Gay people didn't want to take marriage rights away from anyone, we just want the same rights as anyone else. The supreme court agreed. That's the job of the court, to intervene when "the will of the people" would take rights away from a minorty, to "legislate from the bench", just like when blacks were integrated into schools, and when women were made fully vested voters, and Jim Crow laws were struck down. Do you think voters passed laws for that? Eh, no. The voters were all for segregation and injustice. It's called checks and balances, you should look it up.

That lies were perpetrated to pass the bill is just one of the MANY legal avenues to defend against this onerous bill. If you have to lie to get your bill passed and fool voters into thinking it's something it isn't then your bill deserves to fall to the gavel, and it will because it writes descrimination into the constitution.

Shame on them and shame on anyone who would take rights away from a minority for no reason other than they can. Martin Luther King wouldn't have supported it. Equal rights for all humans. If your marriage is in trouble because I marry my partner, you should seek councelling. Gay marriage does not detract one bit from society, it only makes it better. I pay my taxes and my bills. I go to work and heal the sick and I deserve every right that everyone else has. If anyone has a problem with it then they should take a good look at the mirror and see why that may be. I did and I started the terrifying and hurculean work of dealing with my homosexuality and the role society would try to force on me; the roll of a second class citizen, good only for picking up the garbage, shunned by society because I was born gay, unable to marry, or adopt children, or have the rights of survivorship of the property my partner and I accumulated together. Anyone can kick me out of an apartment because I'm gay. Anyone can fire me.

It's still legal in 26 states to fire someone because they are gay. Well no more. Sorry, I'm pushing back and I invite everyone who sees injustice in the world to call it out. I call bull @#@! on prop 8!

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I can agree that it is kind of scary to say the rights of a minority can be decided by the "will" of the majority. I also agree that we would still have segregation in certain parts of this country if it had been left up to the "will" of the majority of the citizens in those parts of the country - who were actually allowed to vote. But let's face it - many people who think equal rights should be up for a refrendum are the same kind of people who would have made those arguments as a way to support disenfranchising blacks forty, fifty years ago. That is why segregation lasted for so many generations - because the majority of people in certain parts of the country were happy with the status quo.

On the other hand, we were allowed to vote for a similar anti-gay marriage ammendment here in Florida last week and I voted for it. Just as gays would like to be tolerated we also have to respect the views of people of faith, and many people of faith hold it as a religious principle that homosexuality is wrong. The whole gay marriage issue is being orchestrated by the gay left to "stick it" to "those Christians" who, as a matter of faith, do not support the gay lifestyle. That is religious persecution. I mean think about it what is marriage for? To legitimize both children and sexual behavior. Well, gay men don't create children together and we don't try to legitimize our sexual conduct so I have never seen the point of lobbying for marriage which we know very well Christians hold to be a Holy sacrament. To me it just seems to be a blatant and deliberate attempt to attack other people's religious beliefs. There are individual rights we can work for that don't require hijacking an entire institution.

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

Miwila- does this mean that those of other faiths or no faith who get married are also "hijacking an entire institution" since it is a "Christian Holy Sacrament"?

Also, what about separation of church and state? If people view marriage as religious, then let's get rid of marriage licenses period and everyone can have a civil union when it comes to the law, and marriage can be reserved as only performed and recognized by religion

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Poet, Marriage is not only a religious rite, but it is also a religious rite, and as I stated before it is my belief that this whole gay marriage debate is being stirred up by gay radicals who wish to deliberately antagonize Christians in particular because of the stance conservative Christian churches take on the whole issue of homosexuality.

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Gay radicals?

Marriage is not a religious institution. It was here before Christianity and it will be here after Christianity goes the way of the dodo.

Antagonizing bigots doesn't make you a radical.

Rather, it makes you a decent human being.

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Of course marriage predates Christianity but in America 2008 it is regarded as a state of Holy union by Chrisitians and we all know that. So in the spirit of co-existing peacefully with other Americans I think the gay community ought to try to find a less contentious way of validating our unions.

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I propose that radical Christians remember that they aren't the only people in the country worthy of rights.

Your request is eerily similar to those people that wished blacks would stop agitating and be happy with 'seperate but equal.'

You should probably think about that and what it means.

Ohhh.... I just saw what forum we are in...

I'll move it back to the premium forum. OOPS! :sofahider

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
Of course marriage predates Christianity but in America 2008 it is regarded as a state of Holy union by Chrisitians and we all know that. So in the spirit of co-existing peacefully with other Americans I think the gay community ought to try to find a less contentious way of validating our unions.

So are you saying that gays don't have the right to validate their unions in the same way that heteros can validate their relationships? I view my relationship as perfectly valid, and believe I should have the right to marry should I choose. The gay community is not trying to find a contentious way to anger any religion, we simply wish to be considered equal. Right now, many states are treating us as second class citizens, including those that allow "domestic partnerships" and "civil unions." Separate is never equal.

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There are ways to validate our unions that don't need to include antagonizing the religious sentiments of a large segment of the population. What is it that gay marriage proves aside from making a point?

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There are ways to validate our unions that don't need to include antagonizing the religious sentiments of a large segment of the population. What is it that gay marriage proves aside from making a point?

Um the purpose of the Constitution is to protect the minority from the majority.

I could care less if the 'larger' segment is annoyed.

I'm pretty sure a large segment of the population is annoyed that the president-elect is black. I still don't care.

Marriage is for everyone or it's for no one.

If you want to live in a theocracy Iran is very open about their immigration policy.

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Specializes in Ortho/Uro/Peds/Research/PH/Insur/Travel.

I saw this on Perez Hilton's site and, frankly, I think it's a brilliant solution to the debate. Gay nurses, let straight America continue to destroy the "sanctity" of marriage with the nearly 50% divorce rate! Enjoy the video!

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/cca5e8a78a/protect-marriage-protect-children-prohibit-divorce-from-jonathan-smith

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Specializes in Hospice.

As I see it, gay marriage is not about Christians. It's about equal protection under the law.

I have never read or heard anyone say anything about forcing a particular religious sect to perform religious marriage ceremonies for gay couples. I did read that there is a fear out there that those sects would be sued to perform those ceremonies if gay marriages were legal. I think that is a scare tactic ... separation of church and state works both ways.

It's that principle of separation that is being violated when gay marriage is opposed on religious grounds.

If the fact that I object to my life being controlled by someone else's religion is interpreted as "persecution" or "baiting" ... then there's a problem with the interpreter. Paranoid ideation is a worrisome symptom ... and laws based on that interpretation are psychotic.

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