The American and Australian met in London. They fell madly in love. They got together, got a dog, got a house near Venice Beach.
But there is no happy ending in sight for Tim Miller and Alistair McCartney. That's because the couple is gay, and U.S. immigration law does not allow the Whittier-born Miller to sponsor McCartney for a green card as heterosexuals cando for their husbands and wives. Federal law reserves immigration benefits for those with "valid marriages" to U.S. citizens, defining them as unions between a man and woman. It supersedes state laws that recognize civil unions or, in the case of Massachusetts, same-sex marriages.
Miller, a performance artist, and McCartney, a writer, are reluctantly contemplating moving to Britain as the clock runs out on the Australian's teaching visa at Antioch University. Miller would be forced to leave behind his family and friends, a thriving career and two art centers he began that, he said, has employed hundreds of people and generated millions of dollars in revenue.
"U.S. laws are creating pointless heartache for thousands of American citizens," Miller said.
The immigration difficulties faced by same-sex binational couples are explored in a documentary, "Through Thick and Thin," which is scheduled to premiere tonight at Outfest, the annual gay and lesbian film festival in Los Angeles.
It marks the gay community's latest effort to bring attention to the little-known issue, following a seven-year campaign for federal legislation that would bring the United States in line with at least 16 other countries and extend immigration benefits to same-sex binational couples.
New York filmmaker Sebastian Cordoba, an Argentina native, said he made the film as a "tribute to the couples who fought [the system] and stayed together." His own relationship with an American broke up in part, he said, because of constant stress over the uncertainty of his visa issues.
But their cause faces widespread opposition.
"It's one more area of trying to get privileges and benefits for relationships other than marriage," said Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "And marriage ought to be reserved for a man and a woman."
About 36,000 same-sex binational couples were recorded in the 2000 census, although researchers believe that figure could be undercounted by anywhere from 10% to 50%, according to an 2004 Urban Institute analysis conducted for Immigration Equality, a New York-based advocacy group for gays and lesbians.
