Uphill Battle

The Bay Area Reporter has another article on the uphill battle gay immigration legislations face. Most of it is basically a rehash of past articles but a good summary nonetheless. It also provides a perspective on Rep. Mike Honda's Reuniting Families Act:

Nadler said he doesn't know what will happen in the Senate but is hopeful that the House will pass Honda's bill and the pro-gay language "will be in the negotiations for the overall bill" that gets sent to the White House. President Barack Obama has signaled that he supports ending the discriminatory policies toward LGBT binational couples.

Honda has lined up 67 co-sponsors as of this week for his legislation, far short of what is needed to pass it out of the House. At the HRC dinner he said that 34 members of Congress who received 100 percent scores on the national LGBT lobbyist group's congressional scorecard are among those who have yet to sign on to his legislation.

A check this week by the B.A.R. between the listed co-sponsors of Honda's bill and the HRC scorecard for 2008 found only 32 current House members who had perfect scores but had yet to sign on as co-sponsors. The discrepancy is likely due to the resignations this year of both California Representatives Hilda Solis (D-El Monte) and Ellen Tauscher (D-Walnut Creek) for posts in the Obama administration.

Honda's decision to include UAFA in the Reuniting Families Act has raised the ire of the religious groups, who have traditionally been advocates for immigrants. Many speculate that at the end of the day, Congress is unlikely to include pro-LGBT components in the final CIR in fear that it'd kill the overall legislation.