Senator Patrick Leahy is holding hearings on the Uniting American Families Act today and the NYTimes has even covered it. I wish the article went in to a little more detail about the cruelty of our country’s immigration policies towards gay and lesbian couples but I suppose the politics of the bill are more interesting. From what I understand the plan is to attach the UAFA to Obama’s immigration reform plans which is the only way the bill has a prayer of passing.
President Obama has stated he supports equal federal rights for gays and lesbians and immigration is a federal thing. I’m hoping he either advocates for the bill being included in his immigration reform or at least doesn’t nix it out of hand.
More inforamtion on the issue is available at Immigration Equality.
1 comment so far ↓
yay! i hope leahy can push it through committee.
if it passes it will lead to some interesting questions about the status of gay couples w/r/t federal law. it seems like once you grant *one* privilege of married couples to gay couples, you’re opening the door to the argument that *all* privileges of marriage should be available to gay couples. which, of course, they should!
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