Senator Chuck Schumer of New York has said he will introduce a comprehensive immigration reform bill early this year.  A window is opening to pass UAFA.   Please send a personalized appeal to your Senators to stand with our families at this critical moment.

Please take action now to contact your Senators to urge them to tell Schumer:  comprehensive immigration reform is not comprehensive if it does not include UAFA and LGBT families!

Even if you have called and sent a letter before, please send one again!  The time for members of Congress to hear that this is important to their constituents is NOW.

Step 1 - Write both of your Senators.

• Click here to send a letter to your Senators.
• Please, please customize and personalize your letters — especially if you are a New Yorker. A customized letter will have much, much greater weight.
• At the top, explain why inclusion of UAFA and lesbian and gay families in comprehensive immigration reform is so important to you, your family, friends, and community.

Step 2 – Call both of your Senators.

• After you send your letter, please also call your Senators’ offices.
• Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for your Senator (you can tell them your state and they can tell you who your Senators are).
• Tell your senator:

“Senator Schumer has said he will introduce a comprehensive immigration reform bill early this year.  I urge Senator _______ [your Senator’s name] to tell Senator Schumer to support inclusion of gay and lesbian families and the Uniting American Families Act in his bill.  Comprehensive immigration reform is not comprehensive unless it includes ALL families.”

NOTE: New Yorkers calling Senator Schumer should amend this script.  Urge Senator Schumer to include gay and lesbian families and the Uniting American Families Act in his bill.

• Then call the Switchboard again and repeat with your other Senator.

I’ve written before about immigration reform. This legislation will allow GLBT Americans to sponsor their same-sex partners for permanent visas, the same way that married straight people can now. As one half of a binational lesbian couple, I strongly encourage all of our readers to take the few minutes necessary to reach out to their senators about the Uniting American Families Act.

same-sex marriage = gay tourism = $$

Mexico City tourism minister Alejandro Rojas is planning for the increase in gay tourism that he says will result from the city’s recent decision to legalize same-sex marriage. Last Wednesday La Jornada reported that Rojas is looking forward to the influx of capital that will result from gay-marriage-related tourism and calls for greater tolerance from the city’s religious communities, suggesting that the Catholic Church has its own problems to deal with.  Rojas says that the city will be investing 100 million pesos into a new gay-friendly hotel in the Zona Rosa and will support the development of other businesses that cater to the GLBT market.

The article makes no bones about the economic motives involved, mentioning that increases in gay-tourism have been the natural result of legal gay marriage in other cities in the world, spawning gay-friendly “bridal” boutiques, wedding venues, beauty salons, and hotels. The author cites statistics claiming that 15% of global tourism is gay tourism. What do they call us again? D.I.N.K.’s: Dual Income, No Kids. So that‘s why we’re such a profitable subset of the population to tap into…

This all makes me wonder about the effectiveness, the limits, and the ethics of using gay spending power to open people’s minds about gay people and gay marriage, especially in the context of tourism from the “First World” to Mexico. Does politely taking the money of a white gay couple from north of the border translate into politely receiving your gay son’s boyfriend at a family dinner? And, as Anahí pointed out to me, the only gay people benefitting from this 100 million peso investment are those that can afford to stay at a luxury hotel in the Zona Rosa. I have always found Mexico City to be a very gay friendly city, but I say that as a white American who has never had to go to a local junior high school, hospital, or police precinct.

I hope that the passage of this same-sex marriage bill means that Rojas is correct, that Mexico City will become a truly “gay friendly” city, one in which all GLBT people can live and visit with safety, dignity, and joy.