Gay couples left in a legal limbo

Tom Knutson is a fiscal conservative, registered Republican and a widely traveled professor of intercultural communications at California State University, Sacramento.

"I've been to 42 countries, and I've always spread the word that we have rights in this country," said Knutson, who speaks Thai and has briefed U.S. Embassy personnel in Southeast Asia, urging them to "wave the flag and tell them Americans are good people."

"Now some of my friends," Knutson said, "suggest that I've been a hypocrite."

The reason: Knutson is gay, and he and his partner of 15 years – a Thai national finishing a master's degree – may be forced to leave the United States within two years and live abroad if they want to remain together, probably in Thailand, possibly in Canada.

"Thailand means 'the land of the free' in English. I thought that's what we were," said Knutson, 64, a professor in Sacramento for 28 years. He and Phan Datthuyawat, 42, have been able to remain together here only as long as Datthuyawat, who also obtained a U.S. bachelor's degree, holds his student visa.

When that time is up, Datthuyawat has no way to remain here unless a U.S. employer were to sponsor him, an unlikely option given how competitive such visas are and how few exist.

The couple will inevitably face, they say, the same excruciating choice thousands of other same-sex binational couples in the United States face and are increasingly stepping forward to protest.

"I am a U.S. citizen being denied my rights as a U.S. citizen to live with and love who I want," said Knutson.

He expresses quiet rage because he loves the United States, he said, and has concern for the welfare of his octogenarian mother in Wisconsin. He and his partner will have trouble visiting frequently and caring for her if they are half a world away in Thailand.

With the broadening view of human rights around the globe and acceptance of gay relationships, 19 countries now permit citizens or legal residents to sponsor same-sex permanent partners for legal residency. The United States is not among them.

For seven years, there have been attempts in Congress to change federal immigration law to add a new category – permanent partner – to the list of family members a citizen or legal permanent resident can sponsor for immigration. The struggle is on again, with the Uniting American Families Act pending in Congress.

Permanent partners over 18 would have to prove they are in a committed relationship, are financially interdependent and unable to legally marry, as is the case with homosexuals, whose unions, even if sanctioned abroad, are not recognized under federal law.

"It's a very discrete, limited fix to this problem," said Adam Francoeur, policy coordinator for Immigration Equality, a national group based in New York that is lobbying for binational couples' rights.

"These couples are saying, 'Look at us under the microscope, investigate us, and you will see that we are real,' " Francoeur said. Gay couples, he said, would be subject to the same scrutiny to detect fraud as heterosexual couples.

In 2006, Human Rights Watch and Immigration Equality published a report documenting the separation of couples. Based on 2000 census data, Immigration Equality estimates there may be 10,000 gay binational couples in California alone, with tens of thousands more in other states.

Countries that have changed laws, mostly over the last decade, to allow gay partners to immigrate include the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Israel, New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, South Africa, France and Germany.

The bill now pending in the U.S. Congress is sponsored by Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., along with 87 House co-sponsors, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who counts nine co-sponsors in the Senate, among them Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

The bill has some high-profile business support, including Intel Corp. and the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which have lost employees who couldn't sponsor foreign partners.

About the writer:

• The Bee's Susan Ferriss can be reached at (916) 321-1267 or sferriss@sacbee.com.