Venting Some Frustration. . . .

Browsing the Internet today, I stumbled upon the following article from the New York Times:

Suspect Was Citizen for Just a Year
May 4, 2010

The Pakistan-born man arrested in the failed Times Square car bombing had lived legally in the United States for most of the last 11 years and was naturalized as an American citizen in Bridgeport, Conn., last April, officials said on Tuesday.

Okay, how nice. So I read on a bit further and learned that

In January 2002, the authorities said, Mr. Shahzad got an H1-B visa for skilled workers. Mr. Shahzad married an American citizen named Huma Mian, and was granted a green card in January 2006. He was naturalized in a ceremony in Bridgeport on April 17 of last year . . .

Once again, I feel like I'm on Candid Camera and at any moment someone is going to appear to tell me that the last couple of years of my life have all been part of an elaborate joke.

But, on so many levels, it's not funny at all. I'm debating whether this whole situation with the traitorous Pakistani makes more of a mockery of the immigration rules in the United States or of the sanctity of marriage.

Hmmm, I think I'll go the immigration route. Let me re-write the above information with details from my own life.

My partner Sarah lived legally in the United States for nine years beginning in 1999. In August 2002, Sarah got an H1-B visa for skilled workers. Sarah was not allowed to marry me, and in fact, our then home state of Michigan passed a law in 2004 banning any recognition of same-sex partnerships ("To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.--Michigan Constitution, Article I, Section 25, approved by the electorate on November 2, 2004). Sarah was not able to get her green card as my partner nor through her employer. Her expert legal advice from her company's immigration lawyer was to "find a guy to marry." In 2008, we left the United States and moved to Canada.

I guess I would be remiss if I didn't add one small detail to this story--neither of us have ever had any ties to any terrorist groups nor have we ever plotted to harm anyone.

In summary, the citizen-elected governments of the United States throughout the past eight years preferred to naturalize heterosexually married terrorists over law-abiding and non-threatening homosexuals.