Secure Gay Rights Before Extending Rights of the Undocumented

I'm including this for your perusal. As we forge ahead, it's useful to think about how we might counter these kinds of either/or arguments which are inevitable and sometimes only simmer below the surface of the immigration debates. At least this is out in the open. This may not be a typical response but it's one that we should think of addressing without apology.

Secure Gay Rights Before Extending Rights of the Undocumented

New America Media, Commentary, Jasmyne Cannick, Apr 04, 2006. Copyright © Pacific News Service

Editor's Note: When American citizens, particularly lesbians and gays, haven't received their full civil rights, why is Congress considering extending more rights to illegal immigrants? Jasmyne Cannick is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists. She can be reached via her Web site, www.jasmynecannick.com.

LOS ANGELES--Immigration reform is an important issue, but it's not the next civil rights movement. We haven't even finished with our current civil rights movement.

Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts got it right when he said, "There is no moving to the front of the line."

Immigration reform needs to get in line behind the gay civil rights movement. Discrimination and unequal treatment of gay Americans has not yet been resolved.

I recognize the plight of illegal immigrants. However, I didn't break the law to come into this country. The country has broken its own laws by not recognizing and bestowing upon me my full rights as a citizen. I find it hard as a black lesbian to jump on the immigration reform bandwagon when my own bandwagon hasn't even left the barn.

Legal American citizens continue to be denied the right to marry because of their sexual orientation, while their families are deprived of access to the more than 1,138 federal rights, protections and responsibilities automatically granted to married heterosexual couples.

If we're going to hold 24-hour Senate sessions using taxpayer dollars, let those sessions be used to come up with a comprehensive plan that allows America's same-gender loving stakeholders to have the opportunity to have the right to make decisions on a partner's behalf in a medical emergency, or the right to receive family-related Social Security benefits.

But immigration reform dominates in Washington. President Bush wants a comprehensive guest worker program for undocumented laborers.

With all due respect, Mr. President, there should be no guest worker program until we ensure that all lesbian and gay American citizens have the right to take up to 12 weeks of leave to care for a seriously ill partner or parent of a partner, and the right to purchase continued health coverage for a domestic partner after the loss of a job.

Both Sen. Kennedy and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas backed away from requiring that guest workers leave the United States after their initial two-year visa expired. The congressmen wanted to keep immigrant families from being separated.

Well, what about making sure that the children of same-sex couples are protected and not separated from the parent they know and love in the event of an untimely death? Same-sex couples make commitments and form families just like heterosexual couples, and they need the same protections.

Lesbians and gays are not second-class citizens. Our issues should not get bumped to the back of the line in favor of extending rights to people who have entered this country illegally.

Author and poet Audre Lorde once said, "I have come to believe over and over again, that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood."

While I know no one wants to be viewed as a racist when it comes to immigration reform, as a lesbian I don't want to move to the back of the bus to accommodate those who broke the law to be here. Immigrants aren't the only ones who want a shot at the American dream.

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