Six States For Civil Rights

This hit a snag a couple weeks back, but New Hampshire passed the bill extending marriage equality to same-sex couples, and the Governor will sign it. Good news.

Iowa, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire all have marriage equality now. Rhode Island could round out the entire New England region if they step up.

Another step forward would be the Uniting American Families Act introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy.

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont is moving forward with a bill that would allow American citizens and legal immigrants to seek legal residency in the United States for their same-sex partners, just as spouses now petition for foreign-born husbands and wives. Reintroduced this past February, the act is entitled the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA, H.R. 1024, S. 424). While the UAFA has been introduced in four successive Congressional sessions, the bill has languished. Still during last session the bill had 199 sponsors in the House and 19 in the Senate.

Discriminatory immigration laws against same-sex couples should not stand.

...sadly, homophobes in Congress and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops are trying to get this language taken out of a broader immigration bill.