This nurse’s story is exactly why equal love is so important.

The push for marriage equality in Australia is about more than just a wedding day.

Trish Gorman is a former intensive care unit nurse from Pennsylvania in the United States.

She recently shared a story on Facebook about working in a hospital where same-sex partners were denied any rights over their loved ones and how, because of it, she decided she would spend the rest of her life fighting for marriage equality.

It perfectly sums up why equal rights are so important.

Trish writes:

“20 or so years ago, I was a staff nurse in a trauma ICU. We had a patient come in who had a life-threatening head injury from a car crash. Most patients that come in in this condition receive a number and a fake name -“unid-1234” – until we can track down their family. 

Well, the first person we tracked down was this guy’s mother, so we called her in. She was in charge of all the medical decisions we made for this guy. It was up to her when he had surgery, if we resuscitated him if his heart stopped – all kinds of things. It was also up to her who we called in case of an emergency and who we allowed to come visit.

Well, turns out, this mother hadn’t seen her son in over twenty years. She had disowned him because he was gay and because he had fallen in love with a man and decided to live with him.

Anyway, our hands were tied.

We eventually tracked down the guy he’d been living with for the past twenty years. They had bought a house together. They had purchased furniture together. They had built a life together.

Anyway, our hands were tied. 

The patient’s “family” had already established a list of rules of who could and could not visit.

The man’s life partner was not on the list.

We had to – legally – comply with everything the mother asked of us.

One of her most adamant requests was that the life partner of this man not be allowed to visit.

We had to comply. We had no legal choice.

I spent weeks leaving work and buying a coffee for the poor man in the lobby who was crying because he couldn’t visit his partner of twenty years. I couldn’t even legally tell him of his partner’s condition because of HIPPA violations.

My hands were tied. And my heart was broken.

I was going to spend the rest of my life fighting for marriage equality.

This SCOTUS [Supreme Court of the United States] vote means more to me than any of you will ever know.”

Well said, Trish.

For more on marriage equality, try these articles:

These are the 10 people blocking marriage equality in Australia.

BREAKING: Same-sex marriage in Australia could be legalised within months.

The Internet’s best responses to same-sex marriage in the US.

The one beautiful paragraph that explains marriage equality perfectly.