Family Reunification – For Some

How US immigration law targets gay couples for discrimination:

On a Sunday morning in early December, 41-year-old Abbie Green stands next to Sandra Veronica Campuzano Trevizo, her partner of eight years, in their one-bedroom rental in Chihuahua, Mexico, saying can-do things in the face of a policy that has sent them from Phoenix to Vancouver, British Columbia, to Chihuahua in order to make a life together, legally, somewhere. Then she cries.

In Glasgow, Scotland, David Black — stopped, detained, turned back at New York’s JFK airport in August — conducts his uprooted life, his strained relationship and much of his Denver real estate business from Glasgow coffee shops that have Wi-Fi service. Back in Denver, his partner, a U.S. citizen, keeps the business they have together running as he begins contemplating options that would mean leaving the U.S.

And in southwestern London, Gordon Stewart stands amid the dust and torn-down drywall of his new flat. After 4 1/2 years of fighting, then lobbying, then accepting that he wouldn’t be returning to the U.S. with his mate anytime soon, the pharmaceutical executive bought this new home.

The important thing, it seems, is to attack our relationships and our families. It makes others feel better about themselves.