sciencenerd

Liberty: 1
American Taliban: 0

I have a friend who is in a relationship with a guy from Australia and like you, it makes me so sad that as the law stands right now they could not marry and adjust his boyfriends status. They have been together a long time. Right now his boyfriend is here with a student visa and they are hoping once he is finished with college that he will be able to get approved for a work visa. It tears me up inside because I imagine how I would feel if me and my husband were a same-sex couple and had the same uncertain future. I hope your friends are able to figure out something so that they can be together. Of course my bigger hope is that the US repeals DOMA and allows same-sex couples the same rights as straight couples. Love is Love.

BREAKING: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriages in California, is unconstitutional.

So sad! I hope things change soon, everyone should have the same opportunities!

IT is really heartbreaking.... Gay people love as hetero people and I personally think they should have the same rights....
This is really sad..... really sad... at least for hetero couple, no matter what, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, not for them.... Sad sad sad!!!
:cry: :crying: :(

It really depends on her transition status, but if she has had sex reassignment surgery, you can apply for a fiance visa (or spousal if you get married first). The cases I'm familiar with have all been AOS cases, so I'm not sure how NVC processes these, but USCIS has clear protocols for applications where one or both parties is transgender. I would recommend contacting Immigration Equality - they have a lot of resources on their website (look for the transgender page), plus legal staff that can answer many of your questions. Good luck!

If you leave the U.S., you will trigger the 10-year bar for unlawful presence over 1 year.
Your only option is to wait until your wife becomes a U.S. citizen, at which point you will become eligible for AoS.

I FORESEE MORE CAPS IN THIS THREADS FUTURE.

Wow. This is a horribly rude thing to say to someone. Do you know why OP's petition was denied? You must, if you know they didn't "do it right"...
OP, without knowing why you were denied, it's hard to determine what the next step should be. What was the reason for denial?

Komen reverses decision to cut Planned Parenthood fundsBy Cynthia E. Keen, AuntMinnie.com staff writer
February 3, 2012 -- The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation announced today that it will continue to fund existing grants and also consider future grants for Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening, clinical exams, and educational programs, reversing a controversial policy that came to light just days ago.
The move follows a firestorm of criticism by the public, opposition from several of Komen's state affiliates, resignations and threats of resignation within Komen's leadership, and a national media frenzy over the decision.
Over the past five years, Planned Parenthood health centers have provided nearly 170,000 clinical breast exams and more than 6,400 mammogram referrals with Komen funding. Komen provided program funding of approximately $680,000 to Planned Parenthood in 2011.
Several weeks ago, the foundation had begun notifying Planned Parenthood programs that their breast cancer initiatives would not be eligible for new grants, according to a Planned Parenthood spokesperson. The new policy began receiving widespread attention after news articles were published on January 31.
Although Nancy Brinker, Komen's founder and chief executive, stated in a news conference on February 2 that the organization's decision was based on improved grant-making procedures -- and had nothing to do with abortion or politics -- critics suggested otherwise.
The New York Times reported that John Raffaelli, a Washington, DC, lobbyist and Komen board member, told the newspaper that Komen made the changes to its grant-making process specifically to end its relationship with Planned Parenthood. Raffaelli said that Komen had become increasingly worried that an investigation of Planned Parenthood by Congressman Cliff Stearns (R-FL) would damage the organization's credibility with donors, the Times reported.
Today's announcement from Brinker stated that the organization "will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities."
She further stated that Komen would amend its newly implemented grant-making procedures to exclude only investigations that are criminal and conclusive in nature. "We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics -- anyone's politics."
Dr. Kathy Plesser, a mammographer practicing in New York City, and a member of the medical advisory board of Komen's New York City affiliate, had been quoted in a New York Times article as stating that she would resign if Komen did not reverse its decision.
In a statement, Planned Parenthood officials said they welcome Komen's reversal.
"In recent weeks, the treasured relationship between the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation and Planned Parenthood has been challenged, and we are now heartened that we can continue to work in partnership toward our shared commitment to breast health for the most underserved women," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood. "We are enormously grateful that the Komen foundation has clarified its grant-making criteria, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Komen partners, leaders, and volunteers."
http://www.auntminni...d=98191&wf=4767

Good for him.

Barney Frank Marriage: Retiring Congressman Intends To Marry Longtime Partner Jim Ready
WASHINGTON--Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) intends to marry his longtime partner, Jim Ready, according to his office.
"Barney is planning to get married to his partner Jim Ready. The ceremony will take place in Massachusetts," Harry Gural, Frank's spokesman, told HuffPost.
A date has not been set.
Frank announced last November that he was retiring at the end of his term. Frank initially said that he was running for re-election, but said he changed his mind after the state's redistricting process would have forced him to run in a new district with many constituents he had never represented before.
He first won election to Congress in 1980.
Frank came out publicly as gay in 1987, blazing the trail for other openly gay public officials.
Frank met Ready in October 2005 at a fundraiser in Maine. After Ready's partner died in January 2007, the two began a relationship.
Frank expanded on setting a personal example for gay rights in a recent interview with the Boston Globe."It's one thing to say 'I'm not prejudiced against a person who is a gay,'" he said. "It's an entirely different matter to accept that person in their personal relationships. So over the past five years or so, Jimmy [Ready], my partner, and I have made it a point to attend events together, to go to public places as a couple. It's important that people see that."
Massachusetts is one of six states, and the District of Columbia, to grant same-sex marriages.
Ryan Grim contributed reporting.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/26/barney-frank-marriage-jim-ready_n_1233996.html

Suggesting homosexuality is caused by child abuse is offensive. Please remember that there are members on Visa Journey who have gay family members and such comments are both insulting and insensitive.
Scientific evidence indicates that homosexuality is not a 'choice', that it has a genetic link probably predicated by certain hormonal influences during pregnancy. This excerpt, while not from a scientific source, provides a good explanation for the author of the above articles experience:
http://www.redding.com/news/2008/jun/17/are-we-born-gay-science-suggests-yes/
Homosexuality is not unique to humankind either. People are just one species among many, many, many that practice homosexuality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_displaying_homosexual_behavior
I seriously doubt that every single case of these homosexual animals was caused by molestation, failed parenting or associating with other homosexuals.

Gay marriage, and especially gay parenting, has been in the cross hairs in recent days.
On Jan. 6, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum told a New Hampshire audience that children are better off with a father in prison than being raised in a home with lesbian parents and no father at all. And last Monday (Jan. 9), Pope Benedict called gay marriage a threat "to the future of humanity itself," citing the need for children to have heterosexual homes.
But research on families headed by gays and lesbians doesn't back up these dire assertions. In fact, in some ways, gay parents may bring talents to the table that straight parents don't.
Gay parents "tend to be more motivated, more committed than heterosexual parents on average, because they chose to be parents," said Abbie Goldberg, a psychologist at Clark University in Massachusetts who researches gay and lesbian parenting. Gays and lesbians rarely become parents by accident, compared with an almost 50 percent accidental pregnancy rate among heterosexuals, Goldberg said. "That translates to greater commitment on average and more involvement."
And while research indicates that kids of gay parents show few differences in achievement, mental health, social functioning and other measures, these kids may have the advantage of open-mindedness, tolerance and role models for equitable relationships, according to some research. Not only that, but gays and lesbians are likely to provide homes for difficult-to-place children in the foster system, studies show. (Of course, this isn't to say that heterosexual parents can't bring these same qualities to the parenting table.) [5 Myths About Gay People Debunked]
Adopting the neediest
Gay adoption recently caused controversy in Illinois, where Catholic Charities adoption services decided in November to cease offering services because the state refused funding unless the groups agreed not to discriminate against gays and lesbians. Rather than comply, Catholic Charities closed up shop.
Catholic opposition aside, research suggests that gay and lesbian parents are actually a powerful resource for kids in need of adoption. According to a 2007 report by the Williams Institute and the Urban Institute, 65,000 kids were living with adoptive gay parents between 2000 and 2002, with another 14,000 in foster homes headed by gays and lesbians. (There are currently more than 100,000 kids in foster care in the U.S.)
An October 2011 report by Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute found that, of gay and lesbian adoptions at more than 300 agencies, 10 percent of the kids placed were older than 6 — typically a very difficult age to adopt out. About 25 percent were older than 3. Sixty percent of gay and lesbian couples adopted across races, which is important given that minority children in the foster system tend to linger. More than half of the kids adopted by gays and lesbians had special needs.
The report didn't compare the adoption preferences of gay couples directly with those of heterosexual couples, said author David Brodzinsky, research director at the Institute and co-editor of "Adoption By Lesbians and Gay Men: A New Dimension of Family Diversity" (Oxford University Press, 2011). But research suggests that gays and lesbians are more likely than heterosexuals to adopt older, special-needs and minority children, he said. Part of that could be their own preferences, and part could be because of discrimination by adoption agencies that puts more difficult children with what caseworkers see as "less desirable" parents.
No matter how you slice it, Brodzinsky told LiveScience, gays and lesbians are highly interested in adoption as a group. The 2007 report by the Urban Institute also found that more than half of gay men and 41 percent of lesbians in the U.S. would like to adopt. That adds up to an estimated 2 million gay people who are interested in adoption. It's a huge reservoir of potential parents who could get kids out of the instability of the foster system, Brodzinsky said.
"When you think about the 114,000 children who are freed for adoption who continue to live in foster care and who are not being readily adopted, the goal is to increase the pool of available, interested and well-trained individuals to parent these children," Brodzinsky said.
In addition, Brodzinsky said, there's evidence to suggest that gays and lesbians are especially accepting of open adoptions, where the child retains some contact with his or her birth parents. And the statistics bear out that birth parents often have no problem with their kids being raised by same-sex couples, he added.
"Interestingly, we find that a small percentage, but enough to be noteworthy, [of birth mothers] make a conscious decision to place with gay men, so they can be the only mother in their child's life," Brodzinsky said.
Good parenting
Research has shown that the kids of same-sex couples — both adopted and biological kids — fare no worse than the kids of straight couples on mental health, social functioning, school performance and a variety of other life-success measures.
In a 2010 review of virtually every study on gay parenting, New York University sociologist Judith Stacey and University of Southern California sociologist Tim Biblarz found no differences between children raised in homes with two heterosexual parents and children raised with lesbian parents.
"There's no doubt whatsoever from the research that children with two lesbian parents are growing up to be just as well-adjusted and successful" as children with a male and a female parent," Stacey told LiveScience.
There is very little research on the children of gay men, so Stacey and Biblarz couldn't draw conclusions on those families. But Stacey suspects that gay men "will be the best parents on average," she said.
That's a speculation, she said, but if lesbian parents have to really plan to have a child, it's even harder for gay men. Those who decide to do it are thus likely to be extremely committed, Stacey said. Gay men may also experience fewer parenting conflicts, she added. Most lesbians use donor sperm to have a child, so one mother is biological and the other is not, which could create conflict because one mother may feel closer to the kid.
"With gay men, you don't have that factor," she said. "Neither of them gets pregnant, neither of them breast-feeds, so you don't have that asymmetry built into the relationship."
The bottom line, Stacey said, is that people who say children need both a father and a mother in the home are misrepresenting the research, most of which compares children of single parents to children of married couples. Two good parents are better than one good parent, Stacey said, but one good parent is better than two bad parents. And gender seems to make no difference. While you do find broad differences between how men and women parent on average, she said, there is much more diversity within the genders than between them.
"Two heterosexual parents of the same educational background, class, race and religion are more like each other in the way they parent than one is like all other women and one is like all other men," she said. [6 Gender Myths Busted]
Nurturing tolerance
In fact, the only consistent places you find differences between how kids of gay parents and kids of straight parents turn out are in issues of tolerance and open-mindedness, according to Goldberg. In a paper published in 2007 in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Goldberg conducted in-depth interviews with 46 adults with at least one gay parent. Twenty-eight of them spontaneously offered that they felt more open-minded and empathetic than people not raised in their situation.
"These individuals feel like their perspectives on family, on gender, on sexuality have largely been enhanced by growing up with gay parents," Goldberg said.
One 33-year-old man with a lesbian mother told Goldberg, "I feel I'm a more open, well-rounded person for having been raised in a nontraditional family, and I think those that know me would agree. My mom opened me up to the positive impact of differences in people."
Children of gay parents also reported feeling less stymied by gender stereotypes than they would have been if raised in straight households. That's likely because gays and lesbians tend to have more egalitarian relationships than straight couples, Goldberg said. They're also less wedded to rigid gender stereotypes themselves.
"Men and women felt like they were free to pursue a wide range of interests," Goldberg said. "Nobody was telling them, 'Oh, you can't do that, that's a boy thing,' or 'That's a girl thing.'"
Same-sex acceptance
If same-sex marriage does disadvantage kids in any way, it has nothing to do with their parent's gender and everything to do with society's reaction toward the families, said Indiana University sociologist Brian Powell, the author of "Counted Out: Same-Sex Relations and Americans' Definitions of Family" (Russell Sage Foundation, 2010).
"Imagine being a child living in a state with two parents in which, legally, only one parent is allowed to be their parent," Powell told LiveScience. "In that situation, the family is not seen as authentic or real by others. That would be the disadvantage."
In her research, Goldberg has found that many children of gay and lesbian parents say that more acceptance of gay and lesbian families, not less, would help solve this problem.
In a study published online Jan. 11, 2012, in the Journal of Marriage and Family, Goldberg interviewed another group of 49 teenagers and young adults with gay parents and found that not one of them rejected the right of gays and lesbians to marry. Most cited legal benefits as well as social acceptance.
"I was just thinking about this with a couple of friends and just was in tears thinking about how different my childhood might have been had same-sex marriage been legalized 25 years ago," a 23-year-old man raised by a lesbian couple told Goldberg. "The cultural, legal status of same-sex couples impacts the family narratives of same-sex families — how we see ourselves in relation to the larger culture, whether we see ourselves as accepted or outsiders."
link

I'm sorry you had to grow up around that :-(

Bill, it sounds like you're the problem.
As a bartender, she will speak with customers, and they will hit on her. This is what life is like for every female bartender. You have to trust your wife to say no. If she didn't tell you about being hit on, perhaps you should be more suspicious. If she was a bartender in Thailand, and she did more than flirt with customers, you knew precisely what you were getting into.
If she were using you, she'd stay quiet until her status was solid, then leave you the day after she didn't need you. Instead, she's complaining loudly about the lifestyle and you. This would indicate that she did come with honorable intentions. She's also paying for you. Why would she do it if she didn't like you? She doesn't want to be here except for you.
Looking at it from her side, she's in a land she dislikes, paying for a jealous, deadbeat husband who's plotting to deport her.
You are the issue. You married a wife. You didn't buy an indentured servant. Educate yourself, get a job, and be worthy of your wife. All you have are jealous suspicions that would drive any woman into the arms of another.

No, Danno. One can investigate the matter objectively. An organization with the distinct purpose of generating "empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality, AIDS, sexual social policy" founded by a guy expelled from the APA for the quoted violations cannot undertake such objective investigation. It would be contrary to their very mission. Too complex for you?
Here's what objective review tells us:

Okay, so do you have anything from sources other than homophobes?

No, my point is that there's no evidence that children raised in same-sex relationship houeholds (whether by two men or two women) are any more subeject to abuse than children raised in "traditional" two parent households. If anything, several studies suggest that child abuse in same-sex relationship households - regardless of the gender - is lower than in "traditional" households. There's a link in my post. Feel free to read.

Children need love and nurturing. You'd think the homophobes would at least agree on that fundamental premise of childcare.

Why not? Homosexual men are less likely to smack their children than heterosexual men. Rather, homosexual men utilize positive enforcement techniques over physical ones. Try to get some factual input for a change. It's readily available. If you're interested...

I personally know 2 lesbian moms who have 5 adopted kids, 2 of which are in college right now doing EXCELLENT & the other 3 are still in grade school, also doing excellent. They were all adopted as small children (not babies) and had a heck of a lot more issues from the foster care system and their biological parents then they ever could have from having 2 moms.
Just sayin'

The "logic" is called monogamy and it's not a religious concept. You gotta get that fallacy out of your head. And no matter how much the homophobes insist, there simply is no slippery slope from extending the right to marry to same sex couples to polygamy, bestiality or whatever the imagined end-game would be in their little minds. What makes me so sure? Well, because not a single country or state that has extended marriage rights to same sex couples has given up on the concept of marriage being a monogamous relationship between two people. Not a single country has extended the right to marry to animals or children or close family members. Not one. It's a fantasy of the opponents of marriage equality and nothing but a cheap attempt to put same sex relationships on the same level with something that they are in reality very distinct from.

Health insurance, Paul, health insurance. It's still only legal spouses who can co on a health insurance policy.
And estate law gets a little complex for those not in legally recognized unions.
So as usual you are full of #######.
And some of us find your lifestyle disgusting as well.

Reading comprehension issues, Danno? Again? Read "the questions" that were answered with two simple words, no less, rather than making up questions that I did clearly not respond to. Are you really that incompetent when it comes to following a simple conversation? Or are you simply overwhelmed by this indisputably true observation?