As reader Brian writes in an email, perhaps this article should be titled “More proof gay rights are on the bottom of the Obama to do list,” because “two simple repeals of old law [DOMA and DADT] — cheap dates — are last on Obama’s to do list. But more new, complex, charged legislation is on it’s way to his presidential pen!”
How Does Obama Have Time For Pre-Election Immigration Reform, But Not DOMA?
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Transracial
I am certain there are thousands — if not tens of thousands — of foreign-born GLBTs in the United States who will directly benefit from the immigration overhaul.
So will their partners.
Tommy
@Transracial:
While I don’t doubt GLBT immigrants themselves will directly benefit from immigration overhaul, their partners – at best – receive the indirect benefit of not having to see them deported.
Otherwise, as long as DOMA exists, the partners of these immigrants won’t get ANYTHING out of this bill that hetero partners will get.
B
Regarding QUEERTY’s inaccurate comments, this bill is not “on it’s way to [Obama’s] presidential pen.” Rather, they are planning on pushing for some changes in 2010.
Hint: if you link to an NY Times article, maybe you should read it!
Ian
@Transracial
Totally agreed.
There are thousands of LGBTers who are without immigration status at the moment because their partners can’t sponsor them the way straight people can.
Comprehensive immigration reform will benefit them as well, not to mention that it will give Democrats an even bigger majority.
Brian NJ
@B
Wrong again. Here is what the article explicitly states: “The Obama administration will insist on measures to give legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants as it pushes early next year for legislation to overhaul the immigration system, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Friday.”
“Mr. Schumer said that the administrationās agenda was ‘ambitious,’ but that he was ‘confident we can have a bipartisan immigration bill ready to go under whatever timeline the president thinks is best.'”
In other words, fucktard, WE ARE LAST ON THE LIST, including NON CITIZENS.
Here is it again, in case you missed it: Chuck Schumer said that they had no problems delivering civil rights to a minority — other than us — on WHATEVER TIMELINE THE PRESIDENT THINKS IS BEST, INCLUDING BEFORE THE 2010 MIDTERMS. WHATEVER TIMELINE THE PRESIDENT THINKS IS BEST.
InExile
Some of us living exiled in foreign countries (4 years)would love to move back home and begin living our lives (home, career, family, friends, culture) again. Others would love to be with their partners full time instead of a few weeks per year.
I just hope gays don’t get bargained away (left out) of this legislation. Right wingers always try to stop any legislation that acknowledges our relationships actually exist.
InExile
I should add, I would love DOMA repealed because that would grant the most rights for gays out of all legislation pending. If they include LGBT’s in immigration it would at least be a Federal acknowledgement our relationships exist which is key for full civil rights. Now we are all legal strangers in Federal Law.
Transracial
@B
As a (I would assume) a US citizen, these new actions may not directly affect you.
But again, for the legions of immigrants — and folks who love them — the government appears very concernd for “we” and “us”.
Sadly, you apparently do not.
thewalrus
I think that several people’s main point here – that immigration laws do immediately and deeply impact LGBT people – is undeniably true. The sort of jockeying for position implied in the original post and in some of the comments – who’s most despised, gays or immigrants? – is really unhelpful overall. Let’s aggressively pursue our rights, but not through denigrating others.
christopher di spirito
It’s clear that the globe-trotting Obama (who seems to have trouble staying in one place for more than 48 hours at a time) has no template for LGBT issues.
Yes, I’m happy he’s in the White House and not the Old Coot McCain or the Borg Queen, but I am losing hope that we will see either DADT or DOMA repealed during his first term.
Assuming there’s a second Obama term, maybe October 2012?
Queer Lust
Priorities…
Besides, he’ll get around to gay rights when its closer to his own re-election and he needs to reach into our pockets again. [/sarcasm]
schlukitz
No. 6., InExile:
Others would love to be with their partners full time instead of a few weeks per year.
As a person who has been doing exactly that for the past 7 years, come this New Years Eve, I hear you, loud and clear.
All of us who are in committed same-sex, bi-national relationships deserve and are entitled to better treatment from our Immigration authorities who are, after all is said and done, servants of the taxpayers, than we have received in the past.
Attmay
So we’re behind fucking illegal aliens? He and everyone in the house and senate who supports this should be impeached.
Foreign woman
Hello,
I am new here but I have been reading this site sometimes as I am great supporter of LGBT rights . Where I come from, they need every help they can get. So I have been reading this site to get some ideas how to fight homopfobia (mostly by blogging and petitions signings ) in my country.
Please forgive my poor english as it is not my native language.
I got registered only to tell you that there is no any immigration reform ; I know for sure as I have been waiting almost 6 years for green card!
I and my husband are here legally, US company working in our former country at that time employed him there ,then invited him and over here and provided him work permit so my husband sponsored my H1B visa. We have a lawyer and our case is still not resolved after almost 6 years! It is buried somewhere in burocracy! I am literally unemployable after all this years, (I have bacherol’s degree and my husband has master’s), I am desperate and we cannot go back to our country as we could not find any jobs there due to high rate of unemployment. Not that we did not look for.
So , please gays , lesbians, trans, bi don’t use all immigrants as scape goat , some of us are in the same position as you are.
Eventually, now that I am registered, I will tell you about LGBT situation in my former country , for now only : you are lucky to live in the US.
Btw I am 40 -y old married woman, no kids, and deeply believe in full eqality for ALL .
schlukitz
Dear Foreign Woman. Thank you for sharing your situation with us.
It sounds like a very difficult one, for sure and I, for one, sincerely hope that your dilemma will be soon be resolved by the US Immigration authorities. Those of us who are also living in a similar state of limbo as regards to our same-sex relationships, can very well appreciate and commiserate with you, the frustration you and your husband are currently experiencing.
We of the LGBT community very much appreciate your support and your determination to see full equality for ALL. While I cannot speak for our entire community, those of us in bi-national relationships who are anxious to unite with our loved ones and families can certainly understand the plight of immigrants and would be loathe to use or label them as scapegoats.
My grandparents on both sides, as well as my father were immigrants. My grandparents entered the US legally, but my father, fleeing the Nazis, was forced to enter the US illegally and had to fight a long, costly and heart-wrenching battle to remain in America with his family. A working-class man who came out of the depression years, bringing us back to Germany with him was not an option.
After the war ended, my father, with the aid of an Immigration attorney, continued his efforts to gain legal citizenship but was finally told in 1954 that he would have to return to Germany and re-enter the US under the quota system. I was 14 and my brother was only 4 at the time.
Little did either of us know, but I and my brother would not see our father again for another 15 years before he was finally allowed to return to the US. As fate would have it, my father was killed in an auto accident on Christmas Eve a year later.
Because of American bureaucracy, my brother and I were denied the most important years of having a father to guide us and help us grow up into responsible, mature individuals and were left to fend for ourselve as best we could. For that reason alone, I will never forgive my government,
Now, at the age of 73, my government and I have locked horns yet once again, though no fault of mine or my foreign partner, I might add. As I am certain you must be aware of, LGBT people do not have the privilege of sponsoring our loved ones with an H1B Visa as your husband was able to.
Deprived of a normal, happy childhood by my government, I am now being deprived of my chosen family because of the dictates of people who despise LGBT people and will stop at nothing to keep them down-trodden, second-class citizens…and if afforded the right to vote on the issues, they would even strip us of our citizenship, pensions and Social Security and imprison us as Hitler did during WWII.
Lucky to live in the US? Perhaps…if you don’t mind being robbed of many of your liberties and civil-rights and being told how to live your life by self-righteous hypocrites who don’t do a very good job of living their own lives, when you get right down to it.
Heterosexuality and “traditional marriage” have not exactly done a compelling and superb job of making it the golden model of behavior for all, sad to say. Yet, the majority of heterosexuals in this country, still insist that we live our lives “their way” or no way!
It is not the Immigrants of this country that are being used as scapegoats, Foreign Woman. It’s the estimated 20-30 million taxpaying LGBT people who were born on American soil, including the some 36,000 same-sex couples in bi-national relationships and who are forced to live apart, who want nothing more but to be left to live our lives as we see fit but are being told that we are looking for “special treatment”, who are the real scapegoats.
Foreign woman
Dear Schlukitz,
Thanks for replying.
Well, your life journey certainly has not been an easy one, sorry to hear it.
I think you got me a little bit wrong here, I just wanted to tell that not only anything has been done about repealing of DOMA but about immigration reform as well. Just wanted to clarify so things would not go into “divide and rule” policy as I sensed from this article which made me register and try to explain. I may be wrong of course in which case I apologise.
I know very little about DP but I know that under that arrangement American born LGBT citizen cannot sponsor a person who loves into this otherwise good country. I must ask you to believe me when I am saying that that fact makes me very uncomfortable, absolutely is not OK that I have more rights in the US than someone born here. I actually cannot understand how that happened, who voted for that bill, what did they think of. Whenever I feel very low about my situation I always remind myself that there are people, probably around me, who have even less rights than I do and who suffer terrible injustice. In my so far observation of LGBT situation worldwide I have been able to recognize the full extent of injustice, prejudice and violence towards you people, and I am mortified about it. That’s why I am very passionate about fighting for your rights. I cannot comprehend how f.e. anyone may think that it’s OK to vote NO on gay marriage (or to think something much worse)especially when someone (love) life has no influence on other people’s lives whatsoever. I am still waiting for a valid explanation. I believe, being married myself, I would now about that kind of influence so far :)))
Yet they expect your tax money regardless.
Please, let me inform you that in my country LGBT people also pay taxes but they have been physically and verbally assaulted in their own families and on the streets on daily basis , live in ultimate fear, have no any rights and gov. does nothing to prevent it. That’s why I said :you are lucky to live in the US. Believe me you are:If you are assaulted here you can call the police and go to the court: in my country the police would not intervene and would say: is it your fault because you selected that lifestyle and to be gay. I never heard anyone there been tried in court for harming some gay/lesbian. LGBT there can only dream about DP.
I really hope my position is clarified now.
schlukitz
Dear Foreign Woman,
Oh my. I seem to have inadvertently put you on the defensive and it was not my intent to do so. Perhaps I expressed my feelings and thoughts a tad too intensely. I tend to do that at times since equality is a subject that I do feel very intensely about. If I offended your sensibilities, then it is I who owes you an apology.
Speaking for myself, I would be the very last person to support a “divide and rule” policy. That is the domain and modus operandi of the religious right…including the proponents of same-sex, civil-unions that are stripped of many of the benefits and privileges of marriage. And, sad to say, it seems to be working out quite well for them. Please allow me to re-state that I am, like you, a believer and a fighter for equality for all. Nothing less will do.
I think that where our trains of thought separated and caused you to feel that I was railing against you, might have been my response to your statement that we gays are very lucky to live in the USA.
Yes,if you are comparing America to let’s say Nairobi, where being gay is a crime punishable by imprisonment, or Iran, where Muslims hang teenage boys in public squares without a trail and merely on suspicion of having had homosexual sex, then you are absolutely correct. We are, indeed, lucky to be living in the USA.
Please remember, however, that there are many countries in the world that are gay-friendly and some seven nations around the world, where same-sex marriage is already a reality so I don’t think that I am ready to start tossing accolades and roses at either Mr. Obama or our government just yet. š
You also wrote “Please, let me inform you that in my country LGBT people also pay taxes but they have been physically and verbally assaulted in their own families and on the streets on daily basis , live in ultimate fear, have no any rights and gov. does nothing to prevent it.”
Were I a native of the Philippines, where I also maintain a home so that I can spend at least a portion of my year with my hubby of seven years, I would have believed that you were describing America to me.
The thing is, we are, in fact, and in modern-day America, physically and verbally/physically assaulted in our own families, thrown out of our homes by them, are evicted from our apartments and fired from our jobs, bashed/killed on the streets and gay clubs on a daily basis, live in ultimate fear, have limited rights and a government that does nothing to prevent any of the foregoing atrocities. I personally, still bear the scars of two queer-bashing that I received as a teenager; one in the state of Florida and the other in New York. I am thankful just to be here and and be able to tell you about them.
And, adding insult to injury, our government has also passed laws like DADT and DOMA to aid and abet those who would sooner see us perish, before allowing us to have any rights whatsoever.
I was born in the USA and have lived in this country for over 73 years now. I was at Stonewall where the gay movement, at least as we know it know today, was born. I have been affiliated with many gay groups and been politically active since the age of 15, so I am very well acquainted with “how it is for gays” in America. It is precisely that acquaintance with the cold, hard realities of being gay in America, that causes me to take issue with what I feel is a rose-colored view of life in America on your behalf.
I am certain that you did not intend for your comments to sound like you were telling me that I should be more thankful to be here in America, or less vocal in my condemnation of my government, as I have been by some of my own compatriots. Nor, did I take it as such.
Like you, I was merely trying to clarify my position…and hope that I have succeeded in doing so with this response.
Pax. š
1EqualityUSA
schlukitz, You are a good egg, a real gentleman. Thank you for sharing your heart breaking story. I think if we looked at everyone participating in this Queerty space, we would find unspeakable pain. I wish both you and Foreign woman well.
schlukitz
And you, Sir, are also a good egg and a gentleman.
Thank you for your kinds word of support and understanding and the well wishes that you send to Foreign Woman and me, 1EqualityUSA. I am certain that they will mean as much to her, as they do to me.
I have to confess that always enjoy reading your thoughtful, intelligent and informative posts on Queerty and find myself eagerly looking forward to them.
I would have to agree with your comment that if we looked at everyone participating in this Queerty space, we would, indeed, find unspeakable pain.
I find it comforting that we have this space in which we all can, both straight and gay, articulate our innermost thoughts and feelings that we sometimes cannot express to those closest to us because they just wouldn’t understand.
A pleasant and good evening to you, Sir