The California State Supreme Court is taking their sweet time to rule on the same sex marriage ban created by Proposition 8. They have until June 3 to present their ruling. In the meantime, Iowa and Vermont have ruled in favor of same sex marriages. Will it have any impact on California - probably not.
For those who argue that domestic partnerships are the legally "same" as marriage in California - take a look at the case of Shirley Tan and her partner of 23 years, Jay Mercado. They are the parents of 12 year old twin sons. Federal authorities plan to deport Tan to her native Philippines on April 22. The federal government does not recognise their domestic partnership - as grounds for legal immigration. As their attorney says "They being discriminated against because they are lesbians." Mercado says "If I were a man, none of this would be happening."
Federal officials can look past immigration violations when heterosexual couple have children according to the attorney. "Congress has always taken the position that maintaining the family unit is so important that a non citizen spouse can be legalized virtually without penalty."
Their have been bills introduced to allow permanent partners of U.S. citizens the same avenue to permanent resident status spouses now have. But this will not happen in time to help Tan and Mercado. If there is not a reversal of the decision, the entire family will relocate to the Philippines later this month.
2 comments:
I really hope this ridiculousness is overturned. The trend if moving that way.
it's things like this that make me shudder...i know that our history tells us that this kind of thing used to happen for other couples..black and whites, in england it was folks married to the irish, or people around the world who were involved with the indiginous folks of the area...to me, this is a continuation of racism, although it's hard to pinpoint simply because it doesn't always involve a couple of two different "races"..an educated person would think that with all that has happened in the history of humanity we'd FINALLY figure out that these kinds of things are stupid and childish and are born from the fact that we are AFRAID of what is different....i hope that this couple can remain where they are, though unfortunately, i don't see that happening...
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