By Jenny Patiño–

You know that tío your family doesn’t really like to talk about? The one that never got married and kind of reminds you a little of Walter Mercado? Or how about your tía Margarita and her “comadre” Rosa, the lady she’s been living with for 10 years?  And let’s not forget your cousin Marcos and that thing your parents don’t want to mention to his dad— el pobre. It’s time to talk about ALL of them.

They’re GAY!

Now that it’s out there, let’s talk some sense. There are lots of gay people in this world. Some of them happen to be Latinos. According to the laws of probability, some of them would happen to be related to you. There’s no reason to pretend that they (and their partners) don’t exist.

They’re all a part of our Familia.

This is exactly why the Latino community should embrace the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), which would extend citizenship benefits to same-sex binational couples, as part of a larger immigration reform bill. Embracing this Act, like coming to accept our gay relatives, would ensure that those within our families and communities that most need our help do not go ignored.

Immigrant rights activists in the United States want to end the raids and deportations that disproportionally affect Latinos and separate our families. It just so happens that some of those families are made up of same-sex binational couples—who are no less important than other immigrants that are struggling to keep their families together.

The UAFA is, in essence, a coming out story. It is a public declaration that not only are there gay Latinos, there are gay undocumented immigrants. Just as in any other coming out story in the Latino community, religion and homophobia are creating family tensions. The faith community, usually very active in the push for immigration reform, doesn’t approve of benefits to same sex couples.

In the past, churches have helped immigrants like single mother Elvira Arellano and her son who sought sanctuary while fighting a deportation order. However, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference have both threatened to withdraw support for the Immigration Reform bill if protections for the LGBTQ community are included.

Nowadays, it would be difficult to find a church that agrees with the Bible’s Leviticus on sanctioning slavery (25:44). Yet, many in the faith community still use his line “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination” (18:22) to sanction homophobia. Like sexism, homophobia is slow to change in the Latino community because of its entrenchment within religious ideology.

In the United States LGBTQ Latinos are twice the minority because of their race and sexuality. Being undocumented puts them in an even more vulnerable legal position. All ideology aside, the UAFA would ensure that these people receive protection of their fundamental human rights.

Performance poet Jessica Garza Villasana is someone else’s gay relative.

She supports both immigration reform as well as the controversial UAFA. While she is a U.S. citizen and not currently in a relationship with someone who is undocumented, she feels that, with regards to whom one loves, “gender shouldn’t be grounds for keeping citizenship from a person.”

Garza Villasana was raised in a strictly religious Catholic family. While her family at first strongly disapproved of her sexuality, they have come to tolerate it, if not fully accept it. Garza Villasana, on the other hand, has come to accept her religious family. About the religious groups who support immigration reform, but oppose the UAFA, she says that “they’re dedicated to their cause and are justified in their eyes.”

It is difficult for anything else in the world to upset us as much as our families can. Fights over our opinions, values, our sexuality, what we want to do with our lives, all of our differences can threaten to splinter us apart. But we can’t allow this to happen. One of the lessons most worth learning in life is how to accept our families, whatever form they may come in. It is only when we are able to this that we will really be able to protect them.

Jenny Patiño is a student at Columbia College Chicago.