The Washington Post takes a look at discrimination faced by gay couples with one foreign partner, studying the chance of whether immigration rights for LGBT couples will be included in a comprehensive immigration reform bill, due to religious opposition:
It is unclear whether an immigration overhaul will take place in the next 12 months. The rise of the "tea party" movement, the popularity of tough new anti-immigration laws in Arizona and other states and the growing likelihood that Republicans will control the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate after the 2010 midterm elections all suggest that an immigration overhaul will be difficult.
At the same time, advocates for such an overhaul say, there are also powerful social and political forces that could move changes forward: Chief among them, the presence of 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country and the growing political clout of Latinos in states such as Florida, Colorado and Nevada. Rodriguez rejected the argument that opposing gay marriage provisions in an immigration overhaul constituted homophobia. Rather, he said, the choice was between excluding gay and lesbian families from an overhaul of immigration laws – or losing out on an overhaul altogether.
Once again, gays are the disposable factor in a national civil rights issue. I posted about this issue last July, when Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), once hesitant to support the Uniting American Families Act, announced he was fully behind it because "it's the right thing to do."
At that time as well, evangelical opposition was already clouding the picture in a big way.
Photo: Tim Coco and Genesio Oliveira, whose case has been in the spotlight over this issue for several years.
