MARRIAGE AND IMMIGRATION

Several of you emailed to counter my recent comments about America’s increasing international isolation on the matter of equal marriage rights for gays and straights. I asked: “If one member of a gay marriage, recognized elsewhere in the world, immigrates to the U.S., will his/her husband/wife be required to stay at home? What if an American citizen marries a German citizen legally in Germany and then is forbidden from bringing his spouse back into his own country?” Some of you countered: What about Muslim polygamists with dozens of wives. Isn’t that also Sophie’s Choice? The difference is an obvious one. A Muslim polygamist could still choose one of his spouses to be his legal equivalent in the United States. A gay citizen gets no such choice. Homosexuals are non-citizens of this country in one of the most fundamental ways imaginable – they are barred from having any actual chosen family. Think about that for a minute. They have one fewer option than a polygamist. (And please don’t tell me they can marry a member of the opposite sex. That’s a meaningless option for someone involuntarily constructed to be sexually and emotionally attracted to the same sex.) That’s worse than discrimination. It’s being erased from citizenship in one of its most important manifestations. That erasure must and will end. And maybe sooner than we think.