By Karen Ocamb

Last Nov. 1, two days after his mother died, Edward Mitchell was denied the right to visit his domestic partner in the emergency room and was subsequently arrested for trespassing. The charges were dropped Jan. 17, but Mitchell is filing a civil lawsuit charging Glendale Memorial Hospital and the Glendale Police Department with anti-gay discrimination.

Self-described "home-bodies," Mitchell, a 41-year-old school teacher at Rosewood Avenue Elementary School, and his partner Jose Avendano, 38, needed a break from grief over Mitchell's mother's death and the three-year process of building their Silver Lake house. They went to MJs, where Avendano had once worked when the bar was named Woody's. An unexpected altercation resulted in an injury to Avendano's back and shoulder and he was taken to Glendale Memorial Hospital, Mitchell and his attorney Sunitha Anjilvel told IN during a Feb. 2 phone interview.

Avendano told emergency room personnel that Mitchell would be coming immediately. Indeed, when Mitchell arrived, the receptionist knew who he was, Mitchell said. Then, without explanation, the receptionist told Mitchell he'd have to wait 30 minutes, though he had never been denied access when his parents were in the hospital.

"I had just seen my partner assaulted before my eyes -- he's the only family I have left in the world," Mitchell said, "but they said, 'You're just going to have to wait.' I said he's my domestic partner. I have a legal right to see him."

The receptionist told Mitchell he would have to go home and get documentation of his domestic partnership before he would be allowed to see Avendano. Mitchell asked to see the supervisor or someone in authority. He was told they were unavailable.

Meanwhile, nurses were asking Avendano for his insurance card and Social Security number. Avendano explained that Mitchell had the insurance information and he was in the reception area. Avendano is on Mitchell's Blue Cross domestic partnership plan through the Los Angeles Unified School District, Mitchell told IN.

As Mitchell stood in the waiting room, two security guards twice told him to move further from the reception window. Soon, two Glendale police officers arrived and, in the middle of his explanation, Mitchell was told to go outside. "I have a right to see my partner," Mitchell said. "If it was your wife or your girlfriend or significant other that had been assaulted in front of your very eyes, you would want to see them too."

Suddenly, one of the officers yanked his arm back and shoved him out the door. When Mitchell asked what he had done, the officer said he was "causing trouble" and was being arrested for trespassing. Apparently some confusion ensued where the officers allowed the security guard to belatedly tell Mitchell to leave or he would be arrested for trespassing.

At the police station the ill treatment subsided momentarily, Mitchell said, when one officer spotted his ACLU card while going through his wallet. However, after he called his attorney, Mitchell said he went to the restroom where he was locked up for the rest of the night.

Anjilvel told IN she called the police station every five minutes for several hours and was repeatedly put off as Avendando and Anjilvel's husband waited to post the $300 bail. "They were messing with us," she said.

After Mitchell was released, he still faced the misdemeanor trespassing charge. In yet another twist, on Dec. 27, Glendale City Attorney Scott Howard filed a motion to exclude any reference to Mitchell and Avendando's sexual orientation, domestic partnership, or allegations of anti-gay discrimination as "irrelevant," "prejudicial," and "likely to mislead the jury." In her reply, Anjilvel called the city attorney's motion "disingenuous" since the Glendale Municipal Code trespass laws are subject to California's Unruh Civil Rights Act, which "prohibits discriminatory or unequal denial of access, services and treatment in establishments such as hospitals."

Anjilvel said the city attorney dropped the charges for insufficient evidence but candidly told her it was because the hospital would not return his calls. Mitchell's civil lawsuit, Anjilvel told IN, would be filed later this month against Glendale Memorial Hospital, its corporate parent, Catholic Healthcare West, and the Glendale Police Department. She anticipates subpoenaing videotape from the police restroom and the hospital reception area to verify Mitchell's claims.

Bob Quarfoot, the openly gay senior vice president of development for Glendale Memorial Hospital, stressed that Glendale Memorial Hospital is a "gay friendly organization," as evidenced by its LGBT mental health programs and affiliation with the gay alcohol and drug program, Alternatives. But, Quarfoot told IN, "for patient privacy and confidentiality reasons, we cannot comment specifically on this complaint."