INS Recognizes Gay Couple’s 1975 Marriage, Issues Green Card With An Apology

Jim Burroway

June 7th, 2016

Richard Adams and Tony Sullivan. Photo by Pat Rocco (Feb 9)

Richard Adams and Tony Sullivan. Photo by Pat Rocco (Feb 9)

There was a brief moment in 1975 when Boulder, Colorado, county clerk Clela Rorex was issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples after getting the green light from the county’s Assistant District Attorney.  Word spread rather slowly in those pre-internet days, but six couples managed to get hitched before the State Attorney General put a halt to it nearly a month later. Among them were Richard Adams and Tony Sullivan, an Australian national who was trying to legally immigrate to the U.S. to be with Adams.

Immigration authorities refused to recognize the marriage or issue a green card to Sullivan. The INS district director for Los Angeles wrote, “You have failed to establish that a bona fide marital relationship can exist between two faggots.” That crude ruling was replaced by a less crude, but more puzzling, reason: the marriage was invalid because neither spouse “can perform the female functions in marriage.” The couple sued in Federal court, but lost. They also lost on appeals, and the Supreme Court refused to hear their case. Adams and Sullivan were forced to leave the country, and bounced around the world for several years. They re-entered the U.S. in 1986, but lived under constant fear that the INS would catch up with Sullivan and deport him. In 2012, the Obama Administration issued a memo directing the INS to de-prioritize the expulsion of low-risk family members of U.S. citizens, including same-sex partners. Adams died that December. And now, three and a half years later, the U.S. has formally issued Sullivan a green card.What’s more, they did so on the basis of their 1975 marriage:

Anthony Sullivan's green cardAs newlyweds, Richard and Anthony could never have imagined that 41 years later the White House would ask the Director of USCIS to issue a direct, written apology to them. Nor could they have imagined that, in 2016, the very same downtown Los Angeles Immigration office that denied Richard’s green card petition for Anthony with such offensive language would, at long last, recognize their marriage and take the position that Anthony should be treated the same as all other surviving spouses under U.S. immigration law, with the dignity and respect he deserves in accordance with recent Supreme Court rulings.

Lavi Soloway, their Los Angeles-based attorney, says the federal government’s recognition of their 1975 marriage is groundbreaking because it affirms that the constitutional protection of fundamental personal liberties, including the right to marry, extends to a marriage entered into by a same sex couple that took place decades ago.

…León Rodriguez, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services wrote on behalf of the President: “This agency should never treat any individual with the disrespect shown toward you and Mr. ­Adams,” Rodriguez wrote. “You have my sincerest apology for the years of hurt caused by the deeply offensive and hateful language used in the November 24, 1975, decision and my deepest condolences on your loss.”

The Pride LA has all the details, including the story about how they met and their long struggle to stay together through the years.

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