Tuesday October 19, 2010
Evangelical and Catholic Immigration Proponents Push Back against Same-Sex Benefits
WASHINGTON, October 19, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Christian supporters of immigration reform are criticizing a bill proposed by Democrat senators that would pave the way for the homosexual partners of illegal immigrants to receive benefits on a par with married spouses.
Democratic Senators Robert Menendez and Patrick Leahy introduced S.3932, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, on September 29, which focuses on creating a “pathway” to U.S. citizenship for foreigners who have illegally entered or remained in the United States. But the bill also includes a “Uniting American Families Act” (UAFA) allowing unmarried “permanent partners” of U.S. citizens, including same-sex partners, to obtain U.S. residency on the same basis as married spouses.
Two proponents of loosened immigration policies, Roman Catholic Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City and the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, have spoken against this “permanent partners” provision.
Wester told Sen. Menendez in a letter last month “that a controversial provision, which would confer marriage-like immigration benefits to same-sex couples,” would “preclude the U.S. bishops from supporting” the bill.
Last year Wester warned that similar legislation in the House of Representatives would “erode the institution of marriage and family by according marriage-like immigration benefits to same sex relationships, a position that is contrary to the very nature of marriage which pre-dates the Church and the state.”
Alan Wisdom, president of the Institute on Religion & Democracy, conjectured that the bill, unlikely to gain traction, “is mostly for show – to motivate potential Democratic voters in next month’s election.”
“But with the ‘permanent partners’ provision, the bill threatens to unravel the very coalition it was designed to attract,” said Wisdom. “Church members in the pews have been more skeptical about conditional amnesty for illegal immigrants. The liberal push to recognize same-sex couples under immigration ‘reform’ will surely strain the already unstable pro-immigration coalition.”