Q Toon: Leahy Amendment

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) last week introduced an amendment to the immigration reform bill which would recognize the relationships between American and non-American same-sex couples. While marriage to Mark Sanford would automatically make his Argentinian girlfriend eligible for U.S. citizenship, the same is not now afforded to the foreign nationals who marry a person of the same sex in any of the twelve states where such marriages are recognized.

Republicans -- notably closet case Lindsey Graham (R-SC) -- quickly announced that they couldn't support the bill with the Leahy amendment in it, and erstwhile Democratic LGBT allies from Diane Feinstein to Al Franken to Chuck Schumer immediately signaled that they wouldn't support the amendment, either. With President Obama reportedly also urging him to drop the issue, Senator Leahy withdrew his amendment.

“It’s hard for me to look at two couples in Vermont, both legally married, [and] say to one, ‘We can help you with your immigration problems,’ but to the other one, ‘Sorry, the law requires us to discriminate against you.’ But the Republicans made very clear that they would defeat the whole immigration bill if that amendment was in there,” Leahy said. 

Republican opposition to LGBT couples is hardly surprising -- breaking up our families is a longstanding priority of their party -- but the utter lack of any support from Leahy's fellow Democrats is more than disappointing:

Steve Rawls, spokesman for Immigration Equality, a Washington-based group that has been pushing the issue, had high praise for Leahy on Friday, but the opposite for other Democrats.
“We expected Republican opposition, but we also expected other Democrats to stand with Senator Leahy and pledge their support for our families,” Rawls said. “And the fact they didn’t was just disgraceful.”

I don't often have occasion to draw cartoons critical of Democrats these days, the alternative to them being so thoroughly, horrifically offensive. So make a note of this week's cartoon. I am unlikely to draw many more like it.