Same-Sex Immigration Rights

This fall I am returning to the U.S. with my German husband where he will apply for a spouse visa to stay permanently.

If we were the same gender, this wouldn't even be an option.

An estimated 36,000 bi-national couples face the same dilemma each year, according to an advocacy group, Immigration Equality.

The issue will be discussed in Congress on Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, after 10 previous attempts to have hearings on the Uniting American Families Act.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council which opposes same sex marriage, has condemned the bill as "yet another attack on marriage at the expense of U.S. taxpayers."

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hear from couples facing deportation and split because of the law.

Nineteen other countries, including much of western Europe and Canada, Brazil and Australia among others, allow nationals to sponsor same-sex partners for citizenship.

An attack on marriage? I will never understand how these people think a gay couple's marriage will affect their own. It does not affect mine whatsoever.

What this is, is an attack on freedom and on love.

Recently I have begun to see the possible benefits of having government not recognize marriage, but only civil partnerships, and to let marriage be only a religious rite.

But I am sure the same people will also find some reason to be against this because it is simply about their hate, not because their marriages are at risk.