President Obama deserves praise for standing up for gay and lesbian Americans.

On April 15, he issued a memorandum requiring hospitals that are receiving federal Medicare or Medicaid funds to grant same-sex partners visitation and health care decision-making rights.

“There are few moments in our lives that call for greater compassion and companionship than when a loved one is admitted to the hospital,” Obama wrote in the memo.

As a lesbian, I knew in my gut what he meant.

For any human being, there are few times more critical in our lives than when we, or those who we love, are ill, incapacitated or dying in a hospital. During these moments, we desperately need to be with our partners.

Yet, those of us in same-sex relationships haven’t been able to count on hospitals granting us this basic right. Sometimes, we’ve been permitted to see our loved ones. But, often we’ve been barred from visiting the people we love most in the world when they most need us.

My experience when my late partner Anne was ill was hit or miss. When we were lucky, the hospital allowed me to be with her and respected my health care power of attorney (authorizing me to make decisions for her when she was incapacitated). At other times, I wasn’t permitted to be present. Once, a receptionist told me, “You can come in here if you say that you’re sisters.”

Many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people have encountered such discrimination when their partners have been hospitalized.

“In these hours of need and moments of pain and anxiety, all of us would hope to have a hand to hold, a shoulder on which to lean — a loved one to be there for us, as we would be there for them,” Obama wrote in his order.

I couldn’t agree more. In addition to LGBT people, the president’s order’s “designated partner rule” will have a positive impact on members of religious orders as well as elderly and other straight people who have no spouses or children.

Some argue that in issuing this memo Obama is giving “special rights” to gays and lesbians. But permitting LGBT people to visit their partners in the hospital is no more of a “special right” than allowing straight people to see their loved ones who are ill. Allowing gay and lesbian people to make health care decisions for their incapacitated partners isn’t a “special” entitlement. It’s a human right.

In 1965, President Johnson required hospitals receiving Medicare payments to become racially integrated. This was a success. Within a year, integration was the norm in most hospitals.

The Department of Health and Human Services has six months to develop rules so that hospitals can implement Obama’s memo. It will take much longer than that for gays and lesbians to achieve full equality in our society.

But being on equal legal footing in matters of sickness and health is a big step in the right direction.

Kathi Wolfe is a writer and poet. She can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.