The Gay community wants to be included in Immigration Reform.   According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, they will withdraw support for Immigration Reform if the Gay community is included.   The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference which represents Pentecostal congregations says they will also withdraw support for Immigration Reform.   Without these two groups, Immigration Reform will not happen ― Jon Garrido.

Gay Community Sabotages Immigration Reform

WASHINGTON (By Gebe Martinez, Politico) June 3, 2009 — Advocates for gays and immigrants are clashing over a proposed immigration bill that would let gay and lesbian Americans sponsor their immigrant “permanent partners” for legal U.S. residency.

The chasm inside the immigrant rights community has led the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — a major partner in the drive for expanded immigrant rights — to withdraw its support from a House bill to be filed Thursday that would speed up reunification of immigrants with their families.

Including the same-sex provision in the family reunification bill “would erode the institution of marriage and family by according marriage like immigration benefits to same-sex relationships, a position contrary to the very nature of marriage, which pre-dates the church and the state,” the bishops said in a letter to Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.).

“The last thing the immigration debate needs is another politically divisive issue,” said Kevin Appleby, the bishops’ director of migration and refugee policy.

Another major ally, the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, called the efforts to slip gay rights into the immigration debate a “slap in the face to those of us who have fought for years for immigration reform.”

Rodriguez, who has worked with evangelical churches to build support for a broader immigration bill that would expand visa laws, said if the same-sex language stays in, it will “divide the very broad and strong coalition we have built on behalf of comprehensive immigration reform.”

But backers of same-sex couples contend “permanent partners” — two adults in an intimate and financially interdependent relationship — should be given equal rights under immigration law.

Too often, gay and lesbian rights issues “are easily discarded as part of the legislative process,” and that needs to change, said Honda, the House sponsor of the bill and a longtime advocate for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. “It’s too big of an issue to me for it to be treated this way.”

The split comes just days before President Barack Obama is scheduled to hold his first White House discussion on comprehensive immigration legislation.

Also, today is the formal kickoff of the national Reform Immigration for America campaign — comprising labor, business, civil rights, immigrant rights and religious groups — to win congressional passage of a comprehensive immigration measure.

While gay rights and immigration law reforms have fit under the civil rights advocacy banner, churches have long been sanctuaries for immigrants and leaders in the battle for expanded visas and legal protections.

Last year’s vote in California ending same-sex marriage also showed a lack of affinity between Hispanics and gay rights supporters in the state.

The ban on same-sex marriage passed in the Golden State last November with support from 53 percent of Hispanic voters, even though almost three-fourths voted for Obama.

The philosophical difference between advocates for gays and lesbians and religious leaders also poses a strategy dilemma: How do they combine forces to seek a broad overhaul of immigration law without doing damage to either community?

Honda’s “Reuniting Families” bill, which would expand immigration benefits for orphans, widows, stepchildren and children of Filipino World War II vets, is almost identical to a family reunification measure filed last month by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.).

The bishops support the Menendez bill. However, it did not contain the permanent partners proposal, out of concern it would create a new category of immigrants and also because he favors the provision in a separate stand-alone bill already introduced by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.). Leahy’s judiciary panel has scheduled a hearing Wednesday on the measure.

One of the witnesses will be Shirley Tan, who was arrested early one morning at her Pacifica, Calif., home, where she lives with her partner and their twin sons. Tan overstayed her tourist visa in 1986 and is now appealing the deportation order. Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has introduced a “private bill” that would grant her legal residency.

Noting gays and lesbians could be denied entry to the U.S. between 1954 and 1991, Nugent called this legal fight “about equal protection, about eradication of historic discrimination against gays and lesbians and about keeping families together.”

But another witness will tell the panel the expansion of immigration laws to same-sex partners would compound the problems already facing immigration authorities who have to investigate the legitimacy of marriages and unions between heterosexual couples.

“It does not seem like a serious effort to reform immigration law, because it does not offer a reliable method for officers to make a decision to establish someone’s qualifications to apply for this benefit,” said Jessica M. Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative think tank.

For now, the politics of the bill may be more problematic than its implementation.

Advancing the gay rights language “will backfire exponentially” on the effort to win passage of immigration reforms, Rodriguez said. “Good luck trying to pass comprehensive immigration reform without the faith community behind you,” added Rodriguez.