ImmigrationGay rights advocates want immigration reform bill to recognize gay couples

Gay rights advocates are campaigning for changes in the bi-partisan Senate immigration overhaul bill so that it would include homosexual couples. Democrats, however, are being cautious, fearing that adding a reference to gay couples would cause many GOP lawmakers to reject the bill.

Fox News notes that  both parties want some form of immigration reform, but even getting to this point has been difficult, and getting the bill accepted by a divided Congress is not  guaranteed. Gay rights groups and their supporters, however,  are  the deal should not exclude bi-national same-sex couples.

The majority of Democratic senators support gay marriage, and many of them expressed their support for a bill called the Uniting Americans Families Act which lets gay Americans sponsor their partners independently of immigration legislation.

In the aftermath of losing the gun control battle earlier this month, Democrats are hesitant about adding anything to the bill which might change the minds of Republican senators.

“Any amendment which might sink the immigration bill, I would worry about,” Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan) said in a brief interview, adding that he had yet to decide whether an amendment for gays and lesbians would meet that yardstick.

According to the UCLA Law School’s Williams Institute, there are about 28,500 bi-national same-sex couples in the United States. Gay rights advocates want the American partner in a bi-national relationship to sponsor their non-American partners for green cards.

“Opponents will be proposing amendments that, if passed, could collapse this very fragile coalition that we’ve been able to achieve,” Senator John McCain, (R-Arizona) said last week at the unveiling of the bill. McCain also said the eight senators from both parties who crafted the legislation are committed to voting against changes that could kill it.

Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has offered an amendment to the bill to allow gay citizens to sponsor their partners according to Ty Cobb,an attorney and lobbyist with the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group.

Fox News reports that the amendment, however, could have a trouble getting through the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Republican leaders in the house have supported the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The administration says the act is unconstitutional, but it has been reluctant to push the issue and jeopardize the immigration bill.

“No one will get everything they want from it, including the president. That’s the nature of compromise. But the bill is largely consistent with the principles he has laid out repeatedly,” Obama spokesman Jay Carney said last week.