Immigration Reform:
A Gay Rights issue?
Friday, August 14, 2009
By Carl Braun
Examiner.com
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Gay Rights Activists are hijacking Immigration Reform
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Is immigration reform a gay rights issue? We have seen it happen time and time again. A political hot-button agenda gets hijacked by other groups trying to ride the wave and get notoriety for their causes. Like illegal immigration activists for example, trying to climb aboard the civil rights train. In this case there is a sliver of relevance, one tiny, rainbow thread connecting immigration reform with Gay rights. However, suppose the National Slingshot Association started calling itself a Second Amendment concern and began campaigning with Wayne LaPierre for slingshot rights. True, the Wham-O is a weapon (feared by birds, squirrels and even a few giants) but it is hardly in the same category as it's big brothers the AR-15 or the .44 Magnum so in reality it is not and shouldn't be part of the debate. In immigration though, anything goes and of course when a subject is hot, there is no shortage of people or groups willing to jump on the bandwagon. While there is little doubt that a percentage of immigrants and illegal aliens are LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgendered), this can hardly be called a Gay Rights issue. Yet here we are. Talking about it.
The initiative it seems is coming from a small group of progressive net bloggers interested in marrying the two causes together for, as we all know, in unity…there is strength. Today, a gathering outside of Pittsburgh concludes where the NOI or New Organizing Institute's “Netroots Nation Blogger Summit” discusses online advocacy and the intersection of immigration/LGBT issues. The role of NOI is to train activists and “community organizers” to effectively market lefty positions online.
Immigration Attorney, Dave Bennion of Philadelphia writes a blog where he discusses immigration issues facing his clients. In it, he cites the Defense of Marriage Act that prevents LGBT couples from receiving the same family considerations in deportation proceedings as hetero couples get. He has however met with some success in getting transgendered (sex change) illegal immigrants asylum in the United States as they would almost certainly face bodily harm if they returned to their homophobic country of origin; Denmark illegal immigrants notwithstanding. I really didn’t know we had men illegally jumping the fence to become women but you learn something new every day.
For some of us it would seem that Bennion and his associates are splitting hairs on this one but for them it is a real –life issue and concern; just not one deserving of much consideration in the immigration debate in my opinion. Bennion seems to be doing just fine. Still, Barney Frank and Chuck Shumer will no doubt make sure language in any proposed immigration reform legislation protects the rights of the Gay and Transgendered. It’ll be tucked in there somewhere between the words amnesty and migration. In fact we should watch carefully for the Transgendered Amnesty and Migration Amendment in the bill. You can count on it. Why?
Because the Gay Rights movement in this country is one of the most powerful. It’s not quite in the same league as the NRA or the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) but theirs is a well-funded voting block with emotional appeal for the progressives. Over twenty odd years they have taken a subject, once only whispered about in private and transformed it into a “human rights” issue. Brilliant. The illegal immigrant block could go to school on them and in fifteen or twenty years we’d have “Undocumented Worker” day at our elementary schools where parents could come and tell children’s stories about their courageous trek across the Arizona desert to invade the US. Wait a minute. I think we have that already in California.
In a day and age where logic and reason is dead, this civil union between illegal immigration and gay rights is troubling and is something we indeed should pay attention to. I suppose if I were gay or illegal I could make some sense out of this and rationalize an argument. Not being either, I am relegated to spectator status and like the rest of us will have to see where this thing goes. Rest assured, if groups like the NOI have anything to say about it, we’ll see "LIBERTE MAGENTA" signs (FREE MAGENTA) at the next illegal immigrant rally.
Carl Braun is an analyst for the Homeland Security Policy Institute Group and he's logged 5,000-plus hours on the border. He has written several books including his most recent on Border Insecurity, “Above All Else”
. Contact Carl at Carl.Braun@BPAUX.org.
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