Mississippi Funeral Home Sued For Refusing To Cremate Deceased Married Gay Man

For anyone who thinks we don't need laws to protect us.

Last May, Robert Huskey, of Mississippi, passed away at the age of 82 after coping with a longtime heart condition.

With the outcome becoming clearly imminent, Huskey's nephew made arrangements at the local funeral home for after his passing.

But on the day of his death, the Picayune Funeral Home refused to pick up and cremate Huskey's body. The refusal was based on the fact the funeral home had discovered Huskey was gay, and had lived with his husband, Jack Zawadski for 52 years.

According to Lambda Legal:

Since the nursing home could not keep Bob’s body on site, Jack and John had to scramble to locate another funeral home with an on-site crematorium. They located one in Hattiesburg, some 90 miles away. By that time, because Bob’s body could not be housed at the nursing home for the hours it would take for the Hattiesburg hearse to arrive, they had to find yet another funeral home in Picayune willing to transport Bob’s body to Hattiesburg.

The family has now filed a lawsuit against the funeral home with the help of Lambda Legal.

In a statement released Tuesday, Zawadski said, “I felt as if all the air had been knocked out of me. Bob was my life, and we had always felt so welcome in this community. And then, at a moment of such personal pain and loss, to have someone do what they did to me, to us, to Bob, I just couldn’t believe it. No one should be put through what we were put through.”

This is why we need The Equality Act to pass in Congress. Mississippi has NO discrimination protections for LGBT folks at all.

(source)