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Robin McGehee of GetEQUAL Speaks up for Equality and Binational Same-Sex Couples – at White House Meeting

Melanie Nathan – Nov 18-2010:- A few weeks ago Kathy Drasky from OUT4Immigration and I met with Robin McGehee and her partner in San Francisco  where  we spoke bout the suffering of binational same sex couples, who are unable to enjoy the benefit of the same green card sponsorship laws that apply to straight couples.

It was there, while talking about the Uniting American  Families Act (UAFA,) which seeks to include gay and lesbian permanent partners in the current Immigration law (whether immigration reform and amnesty for undocumented foreigners happens or not)  that I expressed my hope that UAFA would be  stand alone or at the very least included with the DREAM Act to be brought to passage in the lame duck session.  We discussed the changed political climate and our hopes for the future.

I was able to impart to Robin the desperation of same-sex couples- that partners needed urgent and immediate relief; and that business as usual, where binational couples are the least heard in the equality movement, yet suffer the most hardship, is simply no longer acceptable.

Some Americans are living in exile- a little known fact by many in the greater populace, unable to live at home, having to leave careers, mortgages and pensions behind.  Others have partners or spouses who are hiding in fear of deportation or about to be deported; and some cannot be with their partners – whom they have not seen in some cases for years. This is a human rights travesty of the worst kind.

Meeting Robin McGeehee of GetEQUAL for the first time in person, over dinner, allowed me the opportunity to note that she is a people person, a grass root thinker, with warmth and genuine pure purpose. Her journey yielded no ulterior motive and believe me working at the pace she does, is beyond the call of a mere job.

At our meeting  Robin gave our  binational discussion center stage and I took the opportunity to inform her and Kathy about the Binational VISA that I have been working on for a year. I showed her my Petition and explained where I thought it was going. Robin listened intently.

Unbeknown to me and Kathy at the time of our meeting, Robin would a few weeks later attach herself to the White House fence,  demanding the Repeal of DADT – and as expected the result would be her  civil disobedience arrest; yet least expected was that one day later, she would be invited to the White House,  and then talking to a high ranking official in the Obama administration.

When I interviewed Robin after her meeting, for the exclusive article  which I wrote on the 17th, I had no expectation that she would even begin to mention UAFA and the bi-national plight.  So when in the interview, on the phone, held while she was leaving the White House,  you can imagine my delight when she told me that she had brought up UAFA and same-sex right to immigration equality.

She said:  “I told Brian Bond that we wanted to see passage of the Uniting American families Act. That not one more person who has an American partner should be deported, separated or living in exile.  I told him, Mel, about your binational Visa as a stop gap interim measure, and asked him to ask the President to get it done soon – and he wrote it down.  I stressed he must stop the deportations of gay and lesbian spouses and partners. If we do not get UAFA this lame duck session  then the President must ensure no more deportations and getting our permanent partners Visas to come into the Country.”

Today these words were heard by many as the article I originally posted went viral – including reports and references back to LezGetReal from The Advocate, She Wired and Pams Blend - where Autumn Sandeen, one of the White House Protesters, expands on Transgender issues raised by McGehee at the meeting.

Robin McGehee did the LGBT movement a great deed that moment.  Because although she was there specifically advocating for Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, there was not a single aspect of LGBT  equality that she did not specifically mention and unlike many who have had such opportunity she mentioned UAFA as an integral and urgent requirement of our movement.

LGR ORIGINAL EXCLUSIVE ARTICLE

AUTUMN SANDEEN on PAMS BLEND

For more about bi-national same sex couples please go to – Columns – Binational Immigration

Here is the Petition that for a BINAT VISA:-