David Mixner is my hero

Enough, No More, Enough!!

I'm not going to lie, my last post is eerily similar in tone to this article by David Mixner. There is a reason for that. I think he and I are just about on the same page from the standpoint of our willingness to put up with the bullshit. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

We have poured over $100,000,000 in the last two years into efforts where Americans feel it is there obligation to vote on our freedom. The entire concept is repugnant and disgusting. That we for the last three decades have been drawn into this game of 'this is politics' and fighting these ballot box horrors so that maybe by in five, ten or twenty years we will have enough victories to force our federal government to protect our freedom is simply not acceptable anymore. Imagine the good we could have done with all that money. Imagine the civil rights movement we could have built if we had the leadership that was willing to think out of the box and put it on the line.

What is amazing to me is that the more this happens, the happier I am at the prospect of our immigration issues not being resolved. I will tell you that I am a lot less upset about the notion of being exiled from this country today than I was a year ago.

-Andy

This Wallet is Now Closed

To all politicians,

I watched helplessly on Tuesday night as yet another vote was held on whether or not I deserve equal rights in this country. I watched my countrymen once again say that I am not quite human enough to deserve the same respect, dignity and rights that they enjoy.

I watched President Obama, the self-described "fierce advocate" for gay rights, very very carefully word a statement that was at best lukewarm in his support for those on the side of equality in Maine. It was so carefully worded that the state of Maine wasn't even mentioned. I watched him say that he had more important things to do on Tuesday than to watch election results. I watched as the Democratic National Committee send out an email to supporters living in Maine on Tuesday reminding them to go vote. The email didn't describe what issues Mainers should vote on, nor what positions those voters should take. The email did say that Mainers should help their fellow Democrats in New Jersey try to get Corzine re-elected. The gay issue of equality wasn't mentioned.

I spoke face to face with my Congressman who looked helpless to me while he explained it would be difficult to pass the Uniting American Families Act. I still have the letter he sent me when I wrote him to ask him to co-sponsor that bill. He claimed to support it, but refused to co-sponsor.

My senators are vehemently against the idea that I might ever deserve to be considered normal, much less have any rights, so they are already a lost cause.

I say all that to let you know that my wallet is now closed unless you earn my vote.

If you can say that you are co-sponsoring ALL of the bills listed below, do not ask for a penny, because you will not get it from me.

1. Uniting American Families Act
2. Comprehensive Immigration Reform (that includes protections for gay couples)
3. The Bill to Repeal the Defense of Marriage Act
4. The Bill to Repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell
5. Employment Non-Discrimination Act

No more will I sit back and accept your promises, your urgings to wait for equality. I'm sick of it. Stand up and get some courage. Be a fierce advocate of equal rights for all Americans. If you will do that, I will happily support you. If you will not, then don't expect my time, my money or my vote.

Mr. Doggett, Mr. Cornyn, Ms. Huthison, Mr. Obama, all of you have something to prove to me. None of you have earned my vote. None of you have earned my support. None of you have earned my money. That is the way it will stay until I hear that each of you is in clear support of the 5 bills listed above. Until that day, please look elsewhere. I will not enable your poor behavior any longer.

-Andy

-Andy

$467,562 More

$467,562 worst case. $41,196 best case. That's how much more the average gay couple can expect to pay over the course of their lives than the average straight couple.

Nearly all the extra costs that gay couples face would be erased if the federal government legalized same-sex marriage. One exception is the cost of having biological children, but we felt it was appropriate to include this given our goal of outlining every cost gay couples incur that heterosexual couples may not.

New York Times - The High Price of Being a Gay Couple

I can tell you that my family isn't the average. We've already paid far more than the best case, just in the 6 years that we've been together in this country.

But it doesn't stop at the money cost.

I haven't ready the court decision, I'm only taking the plaintiff's word for it, but a woman who was suing a hospital in Florida for not allowing her to visit her dying legal domestic partner in the hospital just had her case thrown out. Her partner died, while she stood in the next room being told that since the women weren't related, she wouldn't be allowed in. Since her partner collapsed outside their hotel room, and their power of attorney paperwork was in the hotel room, it wasn't available for her at the hospital.

Read the Langbehn-Pond family blog

And let's not forget what happens when a spouse dies. The woman in the video below wasn't allowed to make funeral arrangements for her spouse after she was killed in a flood.



And then there's my case. I make a good salary. I pay over $30k a year in taxes. My boyfriend, based on his work experience and education, would be in the $45-50k/year salary range, and in line to pay his own fair share of taxes. If we were a straight couple, he'd already be working. Since we're not, we're still wondering how much longer we can stay. IF he can find a job by April 1, we have the ability for him to stay here until April 1, 2011. If he can't, we're going to have to leave in 2010.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you should love the gays. I'm not even going to tell you that you should be ok with the gays. I am going to ask that when given the opportunity, you choose to either favor bills that would give gays equal protection under the law or at least stop and think about the many ways that you are affecting the lives of law abiding fellow Americans every time you decide to give your support to measures that seek to keep gay people in second class citizen status.

-Andy

Traditional Marriage Values

Interesting sign (via Dan Savage)

-Andy

Marriage in Maine is getting some good ads.

I don't think much else needs to be said about this video.



-Andy

How Many Will Vote for This?

I ran across another interesting site in the last few days.

There is a group in California that is trying to get another marriage proposition on their ballot for 2010.

These guys are so worried about the institution of marriage that they want to ban divorce! How many staunch supporters of the institution of marriage suddenly be less interested when they have to vote on an aspect of marriage that could actually affect them?

More here!

I heart all of you at rescuemarriage.org!

Another Reason Marriage is Important

First, apologies for my absence recently. It has been super busy and I haven't had much time to post.

However, I ran across an article about Arizona that underscores why marriage is so important. Apparently, at some point in the past, Arizona has included benefits for the domestic partners and spouses of its employees.

Now, they've run up against a budget shortfall. Married employees continue to enjoy spousal benefits, but Arizona has given the shaft to its gay employees by revoking partner benefits...

You can read more about that here: Lambda Legal press release on Arizona Legislature

For those of you reading this who might think that calling it something else is just as good, or that gays lining up to getting our rights one at a time should be good enough, I will point you back to that link. What we take separately, or one at a time, can be taken from us separately, or one at a time, without it affecting the larger population. We remain vulnerable as long as our equality under the law continues to be ignored.

-Andy

Write to Congress!!

So one of the things you can do to help Alex and me is to write to your representatives in Congress. The more letters they get, the more likely they'll actually get the issue of gay immigration on their radar.

I'll make it easier for you. If you will agree to figure out who represents you in the House and the Senate, I'll give you a template to make it as easy as possible for you.

If you want to go a step further, then join Out 4 Immigration's letter writing campaign.

At that link, you will also get a template for writing to your representatives as well. If you live in New York, you might want to change it slightly.

-Andy

DavidMixner.com: Observations from Turkey Hollow on the LGBT Civil Rights Movement: Part Two: Learning from History.

I've become a fan of David Mixner's over the last several weeks as I've read more of his blog. He is currently in the middle of a series of articles that discuss the gay civil rights movement as a whole, comparing it to previous civil rights struggles, and talking about ways that gays can follow those strategies, and ways they can create their own strategies. A particularly powerful passage in Part 3 of the series resonates strongly for me, especially because Alex and I don't have decades to wait, at least not from within the US:

We can't line up our issues like planes over Chicago's O'Hare airport, calmly allowing the easy smaller planes to land first and then saving for last the bigger more complex jumbo jets. That strategy could take decades. Can any of you imagine the civil rights leaders cheering President Kennedy if he told them in 1962 at a White House reception to trust him and they would be happy in eight years? As a group, they would have walked out, appalled at the suggestion that their freedom had to be stretched out nearly a decade in some nice plan. They simply would have not tolerated it.

You can read the full article at David Mixner's blog.

-Andy

If only

So I saw this video today in the Towleroad blog at Towleroad.com. This is a video that it would have been great for me to see when I was 19 or 20. It would have saved me a whole bunch of time, I think. In any case, I thought it was still powerful, and think it would be a good exercise for anyone you know that might have a problem with gay people. At least, if you can get those people to honestly participate in the exercise.

-Andy

This is cute

Help Save Bryce

And in ex-gay news, that continues to fascinate me. Read this link about a guy who apparently has disappeared after making a frantic call to his boyfriend that his parents were going to send him to an ex-gay program in Florida. It is shocking how callous parents can still be when they realize that their child is gay.

-Andy

Marriage Equality

A new article has been published in the Wall Street Journal by David Boies.

He has joined Ted Olson in a quest to overturn California's Proposition 8 based on US Constitutional law, stating in short that the laws banning same sex marriage deny gays equal protection and due process.

What's interesting about these two attorneys is that one of them was the lead attorney for Bush and one was the lead attorney for Gore during the recount mess that happened before Bush's first term as President.

It's an interesting case, and I'll follow it here.

-Andy

Joe and Steve

So I've just read this story about Joe and Steve. Change a couple of dates and locations, and this could be the story of Alex and me.

We have a bit more time than Joe and Steve. Alex finishes school in December, and if he can find a job by March, he can stay until December of 2010, but after that, everything is up in the air.

http://www.metroweekly.com/gauge/?ak=4388

I hope everything works out for Joe and Steve.

-Andy

Clinton and Cheney on gay marriage

In the last few days former President Clinton has publicly announced that he has something in common with former Vice-President Dick Cheney. Both of them support same-sex marriage.

I'm going to start by saying that you will see me talk exclusively using the term "same-sex marraige" when I talk about partnership equality for gay couples in the US, but that's only for convenience. I really don't care what it's called. I really don't care if it is given the same name as the government sanctioned relationship of a straight couple. In fact, in my coarser moods, I've been known to say that it could be called a professional cock-suckers license and I would be ok with that. I do care, however, whether it has all the same rights as the government sanctioned relationship between straight couples.

I care about that detail a whole lot. In fact I lose sleep caring about that detail.

That brings me back to Mr. Clinton and Mr. Cheney. Both of them are absolutely wrong in their opinions about same-sex marriage. Yes, both have come out publicly to announce their support for same-sex marriage. Both have also said that it shouldn't be a federal issue.

With all due respect to both of them, that's bullshit.

It is legal for Alex and me to get married in 5 states in the United States. Because of DOMA, however, we are barred from receiving 1138 federal rights associated with marriage. Yes, we could get the benefits of Massachusetts or Connecticut, or Iowa. We'd have to live there to fully take advantage of those rights, but let's not quibble over that detail. Let's focus on what we'd still be denied. We would still be denied the opportunity for me to sponsor Alex for permanent residency status as my spouse. We would still be denied the ability to file jointly in taxes. We would still be denied the ability to take social security survivor benefits. We would still be denied the tax status of spouse for the purpose of estate planning. That's just the tip of the ice burg. There are 1134 more reasons that this is a federal issue.

Until these people taking this stance can figure out a way that we will have full equality from the federal recognition of our lawful marriages within the United States, the can not claim that this is not a federal issue. It affects ever single gay married couple in the US today, and it affects bi-national couples especially hard.

The government sanction doesn't mean all that much to millions of couples, both gay and straight. Many of them marry and divorce before ever realizing just how important some of those benefits can be. I really wish that was my situation. I wish that Alex and I weren't sitting here in limbo every day, wondering if Congress would decide to pass a law that would give us equal status as straight couples for the purposes of immigration. Wishing won't make it so, though, so we'll continue to prepare our exile.

I'm still working on the short list of exile locations, and as much as I would like to start writing about that, I simply haven't had the time in the last few days to make that happen. I'll get to it though.

-Andy

Anything but Straight

So this weekend I've spent some time catching up on my reading and watching list and it was odd that two of the things that were due up were both related to gays and Christianity. What is odd about that is that I consider myself to be irreligious. I don't have any thoughts about it one way or another, except as it relates to politics.

So, it was odd that a documentary on my list of things to watch was For the Bible Tells Me So. I watched it last night, and was really impressed with the construction of it, the stories that were told, and was especially interested in Mary Lou Wallner. When her daughter came out, it did not go well. When her daughter eventually committed suicide, it led her on a journey of discovery and acceptance that was bittersweet. I found myself wondering how many parent lived to regret the way they reacted to their gay child's coming out. It was wonderful to hear her message today, but it was truly sad to think of the cost associated with her journey. If that story is interesting to you, another movie was recently made on a similar topic called "Prayers for Bobby." You'll likely never hear me say the following phrase again, but I watched it on Lifetime.

I am also now in the middle of reading a book called Anything but Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth. I'm not through the whole book yet, but damn I wish I would have had this book when I was 20 and deeply in denial about my sexuality. My two biggest concerns back then were what to do about my parents, and what to do about what they would tell me about God if I told them. This book would have given me the answers I needed for the second half of those worries. The book is about the phenomenon of ex-gay ministries, the destruction they cause, and their lack of ability to really turn anyone straight.

Next on my list, and it starts tomorrow, is a look at the job markets in some of the cities we're looking at moving to when our time is up in the US.

-Andy

DavidMixner.com: Separate But Unequal Means Gay Apartheid

When I read this sentence from David Mixner, "Let's call it what it is - Gay Apartheid," I was shaking my head no. When I finished the article, I wasn't so sure. What we have here is a convincing argument against gay separation laws.

DavidMixner.com: Separate But Unequal Means Gay Apartheid

-Andy

Immigration Law Options

So let's talk for a minute about what laws would need to change for Alex and me to stay here.

Uniting American Families Act (UAFA) - This act would add the word "or permanent partner" to current immigration laws at any place where the word "spouse" currently appears. What this would do is allow me to sponsor him for permanent residency on the basis of our relationship. This bill has over 100 sponsors in the House and 20 sponsors in the Senate. Hearings were held in the House on June 3, but so far no vote has taken place. This bill has been introduced every years since 1997, but has never reached the floor of either house for a vote.

Re-Uniting American Families Act - This act is primarily in place to help those who are trying to sponsor family members to join them in this country. Currently, the waiting list for these types of visas is up to 23 years. yes, twenty three years. The creator of this bill, Mike Honda, has added language that would also include gay spouses as well.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform - there are several bills expected to be discussed this year in Congress. 3 of them currently include language that would allow me to sponsor Alex for a green card. It is expected that the others would have that language added if they actually reach the floor for a vote.

Defense of Marriage Act - this law, if repealed, would allow the federal government to recognize gay marriages performed in other states or countries, and would therefore make it possible for gay married Americans to sponsor their non-American spouses exactly the same way that straight married Americans are allowed to sponsor their non-American spouses today.

Based on what I've read, I think that some sort of immigration reform is likely this year, but I don't know if Congress will have the will to push through immigration reform that includes gay rights measures, so I'm not entirely confident that we will see comprehensive immigration reform pass that will help our cause.

I also don't expect to see UAFA go to the floor for a vote this year. Despite the fact that the person who introduced this bill in the House, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, is the chariman of the appropriate committee in the House, I'm really not confident that this is going to guarantee movement. Even more upsetting, even though the Democrats now have a filibuster-proof majority, I don't think it will even be voted on in the Senate.

It is incredibly frustrating to see the solution to many of your problems being discussed in Congress and then watching as absolutely no action takes place after the discussion. It is discouraging to watch the same bill get introduced every year fo 12 years without ever having seen a vote on it. It is disheartening to see a full Democratic majority in both houses of Congress not even have a vote on an issue of gay rights, when most of them claim to be in favor of full gay rights. If you are in favor, why don't you vote for it?

It's possible that something will change, but I really don't expect to see movement on these issues unless Obama wins a second term. We're quickly running out of runway for this term, because gay issues will be swept under the rught in 2010 for the mid-term elections, and after that it will be Presidential re-election time, so if it doesn't happen this year, it likely won't happen until late 2012 or sometime in 2013.

As a couple, Alex and I don't have that kind of time. That's the reason for this blog, and that's the reason that we're preparing our exile.

-Andy

Exploring our Options

I'm going to lay out some of the options that are available for Alex and me here, because maybe some of you might know of other options that we're not aware of, or maybe this list can help others in this situation.

As you know, Alex is on a non-immigrant F-1 visa. This means he can stay here as long as he is in school, but must leave when he finishes school. The only way to stay is to enter into optional practical training (OPT) which will allow him to work for 1 year after graduation. At the end of that period, he must enroll in another school program or leave the country.

1. We can find another country - this is the option that gives us the most control and the option we are spending the most time on at this point. However, there are roadblocks to this option. One or both of us needs to find a job, and if only one of us does, we would only be able to move to a country that allows same sex visa sponsorship. If neither of us can find a job, we can't move.

Our current search is focused around Vancouver, Canada, Auckland, New Zealand, and Sydney, Australia.

2. Alex can go back to school - neither of us likes this option. We don't want more debt, and Alex is ready to be able to work. We would like to be able to get to the point where we are saving a lot of money instead of taking out loans for school every few months.

3. Whoever hires Alex for his OPT period can sponsor him for an H-1B visa. The good news here is that if this happens, he'll qualify in the Master's degree pool, and in that pool, he is pretty much guaranteed a visa. In his last OPT period, he did not win the undergraduate degree H-1B visa lottery, so that was $2,000 in lawyer's fees down the drain.

4. Green Card Lottery - every year the US government makes available 100,000 immigrant visas in a lottery. People from around the world are allowed to apply, and those who are chosen are allowed to go through the process to get a green card. The problem is that millions apply during the month-long entry window, and last year less than 100 people from Alex's home country were chosen. He's applied for that visa every year, but has not yet been chosen.

5. Change in immigration laws - There are several laws that could be changed that would allow us to put down roots and stay here. This is definitely both the easiest and the hardest option. It is the easiest because we wouldn't have to uproot our lives to move away, but it is the hardest because we really have no control over when or if this would happen, and we have no ability to impact that timeline.

So we have some options, but none of them are really very good.

-Andy

Problems with Paperwork

One of the most thrilling parts about dealing with immigration is all the extra government forms required to do anything. Alex's student loan was denied today because the school listed his graduation date as December 22. Unfortunately, one of his government forms says he should graduate no later than December 15, and because the graduation date given by the school is later than he's allowed to be here, our loan was denied.

He'll have to take his fistful of paperwork to school on Monday and get his school to change their graduation date or update his government form before we can get the loan denial reversed which further delays the money we need to pay for his schooling.

Luckily this one is fixable, but the complexity introduced into this process because of his immigration status makes this incredibly frustrating.

-Andy

US Laws and Us

Today has been an interesting day. I mean that in the way that it is meant in the curse, "May you have an interesting life." Maybe I've overdosed on the gay news the last few days, maybe I'm just a bit tired, but I'm feeling emotionally worn out.

I sat down tonight to write about one of the processes that Alex and I have started in our search for a new place to live, and I may yet get to it, but other issues are clouding my thoughts, so I'm going to write about those first, and then we'll see what happens.

There is a new bill in Congress that would give health benefits to registered domestic partners of federal employees, including same sex couples. Great news, right? It is if you are a registered domestic partner, or can be in your state. If you are gay and married, it is not good news, because gay married couples would not have that eligibility. Because of the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal government can not recognize a marriage between gays, and therefore can not give benefits to a gay workers legal spouse.

There is a similar problem with our situation. Alex and I have been together a long time, and we intend to stay together forever. We would have already flown off to a state where our marriage would be legal in order to tie the knot, but we can't. The federal government would see us getting married as his intention to stay in the United States. Since he's on a student visa, that intention would mean his immediate deportation. If we were a straight couple, an application for a spousal visa, after we got married, would nip that issue in the bud. Since we are not, we are being denied the right to marry even though it would be legal for us to do so.

It makes me incredibly angry to think about, and I wonder what it is in people that they are so against allowing me to be free to live my life that they must do everything they can to keep us in such a state of flux. I'm looking at you Republicans.

Today I watched a state senator in Pennsylvania say that we should be happy as gays because we're even allowed to exist. Today I read a proclamation from an Oklahoma representative that claims that gay marriage is one of the main causes of the recession. Today I heard about a Navy sailor who was killed at Camp Pendleton, apparently because he was gay. Today I saw pictures of Texas TABC agents raiding a gay bar in Fort Worth, putting one patron in a coma, and arresting 7 others on the 40th anniversary of Stonewall and it makes me wonder, do I even want the laws to change so that we can stay? Sometimes I can't answer yes to that question.

With that said, we've got a long story to tell, and I'll get back to that in my next post.

-Andy

An introduction

Alex and I met in 2003. I won't bore you with the details, but we became very close very quickly. By 2004 we were living together, and we have been living together ever since.

While we have both always been in favor of same-sex marriage, it wasn't until we got serious that we realized just how important it would be to our future.

You see, Alex is not an American. He is a student who lives in the United States temporarily on a student visa, and will be required to leave the country once his studies are complete. With marriage, I could sponsor Alex for a green card based on the fact that we are married. Without marriage, even though I pay the bills, even though we have lived together for 5 years and have been together for 6, even though we have a joint checking account which is his only source of money, the law sees us as strangers.

Because of this, Alex and I are planning our exile. We are looking at what we need to do in order to leave the country together until the day when the laws are changed and we are allowed to come back to this country as a couple.

This blog will meander along our path, discussing our strategies and plans for either finding a way to remain here, or finding a way to leave together.

-Andy