You have your opinions on gay marriage, and I have mine. But in the wake of events preventing San Francisco residents Bradford Wells, a US citizen, and Anthony John Makk, an Australian Citizen, from living a life together, your opinion and mine should not matter.
What does matter, however, is finding a way to make it legal for Wells and Makk to live a life together as a married couple. Yes, they are of the same sex. But the Obama administration is now citing the Defense of Marriage Act and denying immigration benefits to the couple, who legally married 7 years ago in Massachusettes. Makk, Wells' primary caregiver to his AIDS-afflicted husband, has been ordered to leave the country by August 25th.
The infuriating and heartbreaking facts of the story pile up as one learns that Makk is Wells' primary caregiver, he has resided in America legally under many different visas for a number of years now, he has never had a criminal record and he is the spouse of an American citizen.
Wells' argument? "I'm married just like any other married person in this country...I love this country. I live here, I pay taxes and I have the right to share my home with the person I married."
However, that right has been denied. The SF Gate states that,
"The agency's decision [to deport Makk] cited the Defense of Marriage Act as the reason for the denial of an I-130 visa, or spousal petition that could allow Makk to apply for permanent U.S. residency. "The claimed relationship between the petitioner and the beneficiary is not a petitionable relationship," the decision said. "For a relationship to qualify as a marriage for purposes of federal law, one partner must be a man and the other a woman."
You see, you can have your opinion and I can have mine. Obama can have his opinion, and Nancy Pelosi can have hers. But this is a matter of human rights, not something we look to the Constitution to decide. It is morally unjust to give a same-sex couple different rights than a male- female couple. And if you are of the camp that opposes gay marriage, then simply don't get one. But to deny a couple who has spent 19 years together, never broke any laws and should legally be given the right to live together just as your mom and your dad do, is clearly immoral.
