I had no idea that Glen Greenwald is gay.  His other half is Brazilian, and…thankfully…Brazil recognizes the sanctity of their love enough to let them be together, if the United States of America does not…

AoTP: You very seldom, if ever, write about gay and lesbian issues per se. Yet discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation directly affects where you live, since you and your domestic partner — who is Brazilian — cannot be together on any regular basis in the U.S. Do you hold strong views about anti-gay laws in your own country?

GG: The state of American law with regard to same-sex couples is an ongoing disgrace. America is one of the very few countries in the world — along side countries such as China and Yemen — to continue to ban HIV-positive individuals from immigrating. And the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from extending any benefits (including immigration rights) to same-sex couples means that we put our gay citizens whose partners are foreign nationals in the excruciating predicament of being forced either to live apart from their life partner or live outside of their own country. That is reprehensible.

Most civilized countries, even those that don’t yet recognize same-sex marriage, refuse to put their citizens in that situation. Brazil was a military dictatorship until 1985. It has the largest Catholic population of any country in the world. And yet I’m able to obtain from the Brazilian government a permanent visa because my Brazilian partner’s government recognizes our relationship for immigration purposes, while the government of my supposedly “free,” liberty-loving country enacted a law explicitly barring such recognition.

The difference between a nation with a large protestant fundamentalist population and one with a large Catholic one.  The pope can be a raving Nazi bigot and the flock can still know what it feels like to have a human heart. 

But it won’t just be the bi-national couples leaving the USA if same sex couples must remain strangers in the eyes of the law…

Study: Young Gays Expect Future Long-term Commitments

A new study shows that many lesbian and gay youths, much like their heterosexual peers, expect to have long-term committed relationships and raise families in the future, according to an April 23 press release from Rockway Institute.

The study questioned about 133 gay New York City youths on various topics, including long-term relationships, family, and adoption. Researchers found that "more than 90% of females and more than 80% of males expect to be partnered in a monogamous relationship after age 30." About 67% of males and 55% of females expressed the desire to raise children. In terms of adoption, 42% of males and 32% of females said they were likely to adopt children.

"We seem to be witnessing the mainstreaming of lesbian/gay youth, with many of them wanting exactly what heterosexual youth have always wanted — the whole American dream complete with kids and the minivan," Robert-Jay Green of the Rockway Institute said in a statement. "Most agree that the primary issue is whether these youth will be given the equal legal rights to realize their couple and family aspirations just like their heterosexual peers."

…which they won’t be able to achieve here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave if the religious right has its way.  But they will elsewhere in the civilized world.  And this is a generation raised on the Internet.  The world is, literally, their oyster.  They’ll go where they have the opportunities they need.  They may always call themselves Americans.  They may always think of themselves as Americans.  But if they can’t find their American Dream here in America, they’ll go live where they Can find it.

My generation fled the sticks for the urban centers.  In the future, they’ll speak of the gay American diaspora…