Tim K.'s Story: On Our Way in Cleveland

[Out4Immigration has members all over the world. We encourage you to tell your story about the challenges of being in a same-sex binational relationship and how you are coping with the broken US immigration system. Today we have a guest blog post from Tim K., who is hard at work in Cleveland, Ohio trying to get his city to pass a resolution in support of the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA).]

Guest post by Tim K.

I live in Cleveland, Ohio. In an effort to get a resolution passed by The City Council of Cleveland in support of UAFA passage, I reached out to The Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center of Greater Cleveland. Not only did they offer to help secure a resolution from the city, The Center passed their OWN resolution in support of UAFA passage as well!

This resolution (at the left) was hand-delivered to me by the Executive Director of The Center who promised that copies would go out President Obama, Senator Leahy and Representative Nadler, both Ohio Senators, The Mayor of Cleveland and every Ohio Congressman.

While certainly not as influential as the city resolutions, ALL the support we can garner will help our cause. Additionally, I feel certain Cleveland's resolution will be coming soon. All the letters that The Center is sending will certainly have an impact in Ohio.

I hope each and every one of you reading this post is doing all you can to help UAFA pass. I absolutely believe that this initiative (seeking support resolutions from cities nationwide), in addition to our letter-writing and telephone campaigns will truly make a difference and make UAFA passage, perhaps as a part of Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) happen this year.

PLEASE do not think that your efforts do not matter -- they do! Every call, every letter, every personal contact made only strengthens our movement and puts our success that much closer.

If every person that is a member of Out4Immigration would commit just 2-3 hours a week to letter writing, calling and sharing your stories, I believe we would all celebrate this New Year's Eve with our partners. Please help -- my partner and I are counting on you. You can count us!

Contact Tom at tom@out4immigration.org if you are interested in getting your city or state to pass a resolution in support of UAFA. Contact Amos at amos@out4immigration.org if you are interested in making a presentation about UAFA or working with your local community to build awareness. And, if you haven't already, go to the Out4Immigration website, scroll to the bottom and click on the Yahoo icon to join our group for daily messages and conversation.

[Thank you, Tim! Do you have a story to share? Please email kathy@out4immigration.org - because these stories will be featured as guest blog posts, they need to be 650 words or less. We know that's not a lot of space, but we can work with you to edit them to still be effective. We have no more powerful tool to raise awareness than our stories. Please think about sharing yours.]