Yesterday, President Obama issued a memorandum expanding the rights of patients in hospitals that receive federal funding (which would be just about all of them). Patients can now designate their own visitors rather than having them restricted to immediate family.

Say you’re gay couple that’s not legally married, now your partner has full visitation rights. Say you’re living in a city far away from family, now your best friend or roommate has full visitation rights.

This. Is. A. Good. Thing.

Unless you’re a fanatic religious a__hole:

J.P. Duffy, vice president for communications at the Family Research Council, said Obama was pandering to a radical special interest group. “There are many other ways to deal with this issue, whether through health care proxy or power of attorney, through private contractual arrangements. We have no problem with those situations,” Duffy said. “But the fact here is this is undermining the definition of marriage.”

Obama isn’t undermining the definition of marriage (although I wish he would push to have it broadened to gay couples). Instead his latest move allows patients to define who they want with them while they face tough and possibly life-threatening times in a hospital. Mr. Duffy from the Family Research Council would rather make that decision for you to satisfy his own vile and bigoted political goals.

Seriously, what an a__hole.