The late Sean Reinert of progressive metal outfit Cynic has had his donated organs revoked as suitable due to his sexual orientation.
Known for his notable work as drummer for Floridian band Cynic, Sean Reinert unexpectedly died last month at the age of 48. Now, as his family continues to mourn, his husband Thomas Snyder has taken to Facebook to reveal that the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services have rejected the Reinert’s wishes of his organs being donated.
Shortly after his death, Synder was put through as the next of kin in the database to answer some questions about his late husband. Upon receiving a phone call from the organ donation program, “they notified me that Sean was identified as an organ donor in their database and wanted to ask me some questions about him to proceed.”
Snyder was asked a series of questions about his deceased husband, including if Reinert was sexually active as a homosexual man. As Synder honestly answered “yes”, the phone call was abruptly cut short.
“After the first few standard questions she asked if Sean was a sexually active homosexual male. Without thinking I said ‘yes’ and almost without missing a beat she said, ‘well, unfortunately that means….’ and I went numb because I knew what she was about to say.”
As specified in the guidelines regarding organ donations, donations from sexually active homosexual males are often rejected due to the potential harbouring of HIV, regardless of medical proof of the deceased having had the disease. With that, unfortunately Reinert’s organs will not be harvested for potential use for the ever-growing list of donation seekers.
Even though Synder specifically stated that his husband “did not have HIV, or any other STD’s for that matter,” because Reinert “was a gay man living in America in 2020, he was not allowed one of his final wishes of donating his organs to help save another persons life.”
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Wholly disheartened by this news, Snyder additionally mentioned that, “the government would rather let people waiting for a transplant die than give them one of Seans organs. As his husband it makes me sick to my stomach and incredibly angry.”
Check out ‘True Hallucination Speak’ by Cynic:
