Gay Lovers in Exile

by Amos Lim

Constantino Diaz-Duran of The Daily Beast just wrote an awesome article about the immigration struggles of same sex binational couples.

At the end of the day, it points to the fact that we need to either

(1) pass the Uniting American Families Act to address this inequalities or

(2) make sure that when the comprehensive immigration reform is introduce, it will include LGBT families under the definition of families.

From the article:

"Barbara Olney of California knows the emotional toll this takes on the family left on this side of the pond. Her son, Richard, moved to London in 2005 in order to be with his partner.

Olney hates the fact that her son now lives 7,000 miles away. “I bawled my eyes out when he said he was moving to England,” she recalls. “I miss him terribly. And we love [Richard’s partner] Trevor, too. I wish both my boys would come back. But I understand why he had to leave. I would do the same for my husband.”

Richard, who was in his mid-forties when he left for England, talks about the challenges posed by becoming an expatriate later in life. “If I can be quite blunt,” he said in an interview from London, “there were many times when I was moving when I said, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ You know, I really had to do some soul searching, because I had a fantastic career, I was making really good money, I had a beautiful home, I had my motorcycle, I had my dogs, a good circle of friends, and I was giving all of that that up. Not only that, but I had to sell just about everything I owned. All to be with the person that I absolutely fell in love with.”

According to Richard, “If the immigration laws changed this afternoon, we would be on a plane tomorrow morning. We do not like living in the United Kingdom at all. We are very well accepted here, but we definitely, definitely want to move back. We talk about it at least once a week. We talk about where in the States we would want to live.”

You can read the entire article here.

We need your help! Please call your representatives and ask them to sign on and sponsor the Uniting American Families Act!

Of course, don't forget to go to The Daily Beast article and thank the writer, Constantino Diaz-Duran, for writing about this issue!