A Simple Change Would End Couple's Nightmare

Glance through the snow-framed windows of Vermont homes, and you'll see couples like Sissi and Janet poring through seed catalogues and dreaming of spring.

But unlike their friends in the Green Mountain state, Sissi and Janet won't be planting, harvesting and feasting together.

Nor will they be able to spend their 25th anniversary on May 24 together, continue worshiping together at their Episcopal church or participate in a community project to grow vegetables for the hungry.

Nor can Sissi, now 64 and using a scooter to get around because of arthritis pain, depend on Janet to be there to shovel snow, grocery shop, lug in logs for their wood-burning stove or deal with a medical emergency.

The lesbian couple is caught in the nightmare of having mixed passports. Sissi is a U.S. citizen; Janet is British.

Their home state recognizes their relationship as a civil union. But that gives them no federal rights. Unlike married heterosexuals, Sissi can't sponsor Janet to be a lawful permanent resident.

Janet must enter the United States as a "tourist" and be with Sissi no more than 90 days at a time. She must leave again early next month.

"If she had been a man, we would have been able to marry (benefit from U.S. immigration laws that enable foreign spouses to stay) and live happily ever after," Sissi says. "Unfortunately, that's not the case with lesbian couples."

"This really affects my happiness. And it seems like it would be so simple to change," Sissi says.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, a House Judiciary subcommittee chairman, recently reintroduced the Uniting American Families Act to change the law.

President Obama supports changing it.

The proposal would add "or permanent partner" to parts of the Immigration and Nationality Act already allowing heterosexuals — whether U.S. citizens or permanent residents — to sponsor spouses for green cards.

"It's wanton cruelty, gratuitous cruelty to keep people who love each other apart," Nadler declared in a teleconference call set up by the Human Rights Campaign and Immigration Equality.

If Sissi and Janet were the only couple suffering, they would be more than reason enough for Congress to act quickly. But over 35,000 same-sex couples are in the same bind, the Williams Institute calculates.

Nadler said having a president willing to sign the bill means "for the first time (we can) make a really serious attempt to pass it," as a stand-alone measure or folded into an omnibus immigration bill.

Nadler stressed that the change has nothing to do with gay marriage. "However you stand on that subject, there should be general agreement that loving couples should not be kept apart," he said.

Janet notes with irony that their British-born cat, Mitten Muff, who has a European Union pet passport, can legally live in Vermont year 'round. Janet, of course, cannot.

"Even when I'm in Vermont, it's always in the back of my mind that it's temporary and how many weeks have I got left," she says. "It makes me feel really depressed and angry about the unfairness."

Janet, whose beloved petunias won't be blossoming in her Vermont yard this summer, concludes with a sigh, "Our life is constantly being uprooted."

Deb Price of The Detroit News writes the first nationally syndicated column on gay issues. To find out more about Deb Price and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.