Pro-gay immigration bill gets 100 cosponsors

A bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would grant same-sex couples the same benefits afforded to legally married couples under U.S. immigration law now has the support of 100 cosponsors. James Greenwood, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, was the 100th House member to sign on to the bill. To mark the occasion, New York representative Jerrold Nadler, the bill's initial sponsor, has written Indiana representative John Hostettler, asking him to hold immediate hearings on the bill in the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border, Security, and Claims. "The legislation is just common sense," Nadler said. "That's why it has reached the triple-digit mark in cosponsorship two Congresses in a row--and bipartisan cosponsorship at that." The most prominent feature of the the Permanent Partners Immigration Act is allowing U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents who are in a permanent partnership to sponsor their partners for immigration purposes, just as any legal spouse would. Currently, because marriages of same-sex couples are not recognized under immigration law, many binational permanent partnerships are torn apart when one partner moves to the United States and the other is not allowed to immigrate.