Immigration

What does immigration mean for queers?  A heterosexual U.S.  citizen/permanent resident (c/pr) can sponsor a spouse for immigration; a queer U.S. c/pr can’t sponsor a partner.  The Uniting American Families Act (UAFA) seeks to reverse this by substituting the phrase ‘permanent partner’ wherever the word ‘spouse’ appears in the Immigration and Nationality Act.

By the time you read this, a vastly over-inflated moment of queer hype will have sputtered and gasped to its inevitable end.  The events following Larry Kramer's March speech now constitute a tempest in a teacup.  But they did draw out some strong emotions, not all of them articulated in the kind of grandstanding we witnessed in the photographs of self-proclaimed AIDS activists in ACT UP t-shirts.

The recent California decision on gay marriage fills me with dread—dread at the schlock I know is awaiting me during this Pride month and afterwards; dread about hearing all the triumphant rhetoric about “equality;” and dread that queers are going to speak about marriage as some kind of dream fulfilled.  Again.