Washington Blade Online (original) (raw)

By JOE CREA
Feb. 06, 2004

Despite an eight-year committed relationship and registering — along with 22,000 other same-sex couples — as domestic partners in California, Davina Kotulski and Molly McKay were recently reminded that the federal government does not recognize them as a family.

Upon returning from a Thailand vacation in late January, U.S. Customs officials at San Francisco Airport stopped the couple and said they were “not a family” and would not be cleared until they completed separate immigration forms as singles.

Kotulski explained to the official that they were registered domestic partners and that in their checked luggage they were carrying their power of attorney, advanced health care directive, wills, and domestic partner forms.

Kotulski said she had heard horror stories from friends who traveled abroad without their appropriate documentation only to be refused the right to go into the emergency room when a partner was injured or fell ill.

Kotulski said she asked the official for his supervisor who told her, “family is blood, marriage or adoption only.”

“I know I’m not going to get a marriage license anytime soon,” Kotulski said. “But to be told after eight years — we own a home, have joint checking accounts — that you aren’t a family, it’s humiliating. I can’t even really articulate the humiliation. What if we had children and they heard that? [Molly and I] are simply ‘playing house’ and the government does not see us as legitimate or real.”

Kotulski said in the past, when she and McKay have traveled internationally, custom agents at SFO did not make the two fill out separate immigration forms. She added that when she and Molly arrived in Thailand, officials there accepted a single immigration card.

“We’ve done this before,” Kotulski said. “When we were on the return flight from Thailand, the flight attendants knew we were a couple and told us to fill out a single form.”

AGE: 34
RESIDENCE: Oakland, Calif.
EDUCATION: California School of Professional Psychology/Alliant International University.
OCCUPATION: Author of ‘Why You Should Give A Damn About Gay Marriage’; psychologist, Department of Justice; professor, Holy Names College.
PERSONAL: Partner of 8 years, Molly McKay, 33, attorney with Gordon & Rees, attended Hastings Law School, University of California.
E-MAIL: drkotulski@aol.com

Officials with the Customs & Border Protection headquarters in Washington, D.C., did not respond to Blade inquiries.

Former Calif. Gov. Gray Davis signed legislation late last year expanding rights for registered domestic partners in the state. The measure goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2005. But Kotulski noted that the state laws do not help gay couples when it comes to federal regulations, including those governing customs and immigration.

Democratic California Assemblyman Mark Leno said he plans to introduce a bill on Feb. 12 — “Freedom to Marry” day — that would prohibit the denial of marriage licenses in the state of California.

Leno said his bill, which is sponsored by the California Gay & Lesbian Caucus and has 20 co-authors, would not interfere with the state’s Proposition 22, which denies official recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other states and passed by an overwhelming majority in 2000.

Geoffrey Kors, executive director of Equality California, said he is “concerned” about the incident involving Kotulski and McKay.

“It appears to be an affirmative policy decision by the Bush administration to deny same-sex couples the right to even acknowledge themselves as a family,” Kors said.

Kotulski agreed noting, “all these things are very intentional.”