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SF Weekly – Stunning Report on Same-Sex Couples & Immigration Plight

Posted by: Lez Get Real on June 9, 2010.

6-08-2010 Melanie Nathan.

San Francisco – In one of the most comprehensive reports in mainstream press to date, Lauren Smiley, a staff writer for the SF Weekly and the print version SF Weekly, transports the readers into binational same-sex couple hell.

The article tells the stories of couples, some of whom are too afraid to reveal their true identities, who have been victimized by discrimination in the Federal law, that prevents gay and lesbian couples from sponsoring foreign partners and spouses for green cards.

No two stories are alike, but they all carry one central theme – injustice and a slap in the face of the Constitution of the USA, which would have you believe that every US citizen and permanent resident has the equal right to pursue happiness.

Excerpt from Smiley’s Article and I recommend reading the entire piece.

http://www.sfweekly.com/2010-06-09/news/worlds-apart/3

“It’s no wonder that none of the couples in this story wanted their real names used. While the couples are out about being gay, there’s no benefit to being out about having broken the law. When a contingent from Out4Immigration, a local grassroots group that lobbies for change for gay binational partners, turned out for the May Day march for immigration reform through the Mission, mostly only the legal halves of the couples showed up. They must speak for both.

Yet publicity has served some well. Melanie Nathan is a fiftysomething firebrand with a shock of dark brown curls and an accent from her native South Africa but citizenship in the United States. Her Israeli wife was able to get a religious visa and eventually permanent residency, but that hasn’t stopped Nathan from advocating for other couples not as fortunate. From her office in Marin, she pens gadfly blog posts at Lez Get Real, chronicling the latest developments in gay binational couple politics and calling out lawmakers who flip-flop on the issue. (Rep. Luis Gutierrez [D-Ill.], she’s talking to you. )The blog gets 150,000 hits a month, some dropping in from the White House and senators’ offices, and she gets e-mails from some 40 couples a month. “I know every couple that’s in this situation,” she says.

Her advocacy for one such pair may have helped to get the issue on Washington’s radar. Last year, ICE agents showed up at the home of Shirley Tan, a Filipina stay-at-home mother of two who has lived with her American partner without a visa in Pacifica for 20 years. With Tan facing imminent deportation, Nathan lobbied Senator Dianne Feinstein to introduce a rare personal bill that would allow Tan and only Tan to become a permanent resident without enacting any change in existing immigration law. As long as the bill waits to be heard, Tan is free to stay in the country.” READ MORE

This Article may surprise many in the mainstream and in my advocacy I am grateful for its timely publication. This is the time when the Evangelicals and Catholic Bishops are seeking to exclude same-sex couples from immigration reform. This is a time of failed LGBT strategy; the time when opportunities have been lost; the time when hope is fading[ but yet still time for a great opportunity.

Another excerpt from SF Weekly: “It threatens the conservative and evangelical support that has taken five years in acquiring,” says the Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, director of the Sacramento-based National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which represents 25,000 churches. “Right now we’re having difficulty getting one Republican senator to support the Schumer proposal. With the same-sex partner, it will be an even greater hill to climb.”

The Uniting American Families Act remains the only plausible solution for immigration equality and in my opinion only as a stand-alone bill. Now it has become the predictable center of controversy because politicians are reluctant to include it in the immigration reform Bills. (See my earlier articles.) Now because of this reluctance, it is the perfect time to take UAFA out of the immigration reform equation, to attach it to the Dream ACT and to pass it as a stand-alone where the Catholic Bishops will have no bargaining power.

The binational community is begging for members of the House and Senate to do something immediately to change this reprehensible inequity. Please if you are reading this and want to help – Contact your representative and ask what they are specifically doing to forward passage of UAFA.

On Thursday June 10th, Amos Lim of OUT4Im migration will be giving Testimony with me in the California State Senate Judiciary Committee for AJR15 – a resolution from California in support of UAFA. If you want to come along in support, please contact me – nathan@privatecourts.com

Thanks to Lauren Smiley for the Exposure – and hello Mainstream Press – Where are you?

Melanie Nathan
nathan@privatecourts.com