Supposedly free
May 5, 2008 at 3:11 pm by Andisheh Nouraee in NewsHow backwards is U.S. immigration policy towards same-sex relationships?
Journalist and blogger Glenn Greenwald has an answer:
And the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from extending any benefits (including immigration rights) to same-sex couples means that we put our gay citizens whose partners are foreign nationals in the excruciating predicament of being forced either to live apart from their life partner or live outside of their own country. That is reprehensible.
Most civilized countries, even those that don’t yet recognize same-sex marriage, refuse to put their citizens in that situation. Brazil was a military dictatorship until 1985. It has the largest Catholic population of any country in the world. And yet I’m able to obtain from the Brazilian government a permanent visa because my Brazilian partner’s government recognizes our relationship for immigration purposes, while the government of my supposedly “free,†liberty-loving country enacted a law explicitly barring such recognition.
Other than make people miserable, what has the U.S’s anti-gay crusade accomplished? I’m straight and am soon getting married. How does legal discrimination against gay people in any way “defend” my pending marriage?
(Hat-tip to Andrew Sullivan, who, like Greenwald and this week’s CL cover story subject Michael Alvear, is being dicked over by gay-baiting politicians and the voters who support them.)
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