Binational Gay Couples Have Hard Choices

Newsday ^ | November 23, 2003 | DAVID CRARY

[gubamyster]

By DAVID CRARY

AP National Writer

November 23, 2003, 2:55 PM EST

NEW YORK -- The choices can be wrenching: skirting the law, leaving one's country, splitting up with one's lover. Under U.S. immigration policy, those are the options facing many same-sex couples when one partner is American, the other a foreigner.

"They're in a double closet of being gay or lesbian, and being an immigrant -- people don't feel safe talking about it," said Sophie Fanelli, a French woman unsure if she will be able to remain with her American partner in California beyond next year.

When a binational couple is heterosexual, the foreigner can emigrate to America as a fiance or spouse. Not so with gay and lesbian couples: Under policies adopted with bipartisan support, they have no status in the eyes of U.S. immigration officials, even if they had legal same-sex marriages in the Netherlands or Canada.

Gay rights groups are trying to change the policy, backing a measure in Congress called the Permanent Partners Immigration Act. It would treat same-sex partners the same as heterosexual spouses for immigration purposes.

The act has nine co-sponsors in the Senate and 118 in the House, but supporters doubt it will advance while Republicans are in power. Any loosening of immigration laws has been a tough sell since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and some GOP leaders want to strengthen -- not weaken -- the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act that denies federal recognition to same-sex unions.

[gubamyster]

ping

[joesnuffy]

tears well up......

[steve8714]

Yeah, I'm trying to squeeze out some real tears, too.

[Cyber Liberty]

Unintended pun in the title?

[weegee]

What about the double standard for those foreigners who have child brides that are not recognized as legal in America?

[Bikers4Bush]

But they only want to do the American gays that nobody else wants to do!

[NativeNewYorker]

As if by magic, the camel's nose nudges its way further into the tent.

[sheik yerbouty]

I thought they liked a hard choice..

[RWR8189]

Heres a solution, the gays that live here can go join their "partner(s)" in the foreign country that theyre married in. That way everybody's happy.

[ikka]

"They're in a double closet of being gay or lesbian, and being an immigrant -- people don't feel safe talking about it," said Sophie Fanelli, a French woman unsure if she will be able to remain with her American partner in California beyond next year.

Heck no, you French dyke! Get out of my country you freakin' pervert!

[Pearls Before Swine]

Unintended pun in the title?

That's not the only place. In the text it has the phrase "skirting the law."

[weegee]

Better be prepared to permit polygomy (and child brides) as well.

Table for Five? Chicken Magnate Puts Polygamy on the Menu

The slippery slope...

[TheSpottedOwl]

I'm deeply saddened...

[NativeNewYorker]

Sophie Fanelli, board member for Immigration Equality

She's hardly (uh) an innocent abroad.

http://tinyurl.com/wdt1

[NativeNewYorker]

Sophie Fanelli, board member for Immigration Equality

She's hardly (uh) an innocent abroad.

http://tinyurl.com/wdt1

[Loyalist]

Abdul can't bring his four wives from Pakistan or Saudi Arabia either, but somehow the liberal bien pensants don't think that's a problem.