I'm reluctant to declare a policy of the Biden Administration anti-gay, but today's travel ban announcement is, unfortunately. Let me explain. 1

Most countries around the world still bar same-sex marriage. Only 29 countries make it legal - https://www.hrc.org/resources/marriage-equality-around-the-world 2

Same sex couples often need to marry in the US because it's not legal to marry in the foreign partner's country. So the K-1 visa is the required route. For heterosexual couples, marrying in either partner's country will work and the foreign spouse enters with a green card. 3

K-1s are subject to today's ban extension. Heterosexual couples always have the option of marrying abroad. Same sex couples often don't have that option. Heterosexual spouses have a way to get here. Same-sex couples often don't BECAUSE of the ban Biden extended today. 4

Even for non-ban countries, same sex couples are disadvantaged because of the policy on K-1 fiances. Marriages to US citizen spouses are prioritized for consular processing over K-1 fiance cases. So K-1s are waiting a lot longer to enter the US from ALL countries than spouses.5

In short, the policy to favor spouses over fiancés has the effect of making life tougher for many same sex couples. It's wrong that these couples are now often waiting endlessly while heterosexual couples have options. 6

I'm quite confident this wasn't intended by the Biden folks. Can't say it wasn't for the Trump Administration given their numerous anti-gay policies. In any case, the Biden Administration should fix this by taking fiancés of US citizens out of the ban. 7

For those who think this is hyperbole, I ask you to defend banning fiancés but not banning spouses. Let's hear it. End of thread. 8

Sorry, another related argument. It's not always so easy to go to marry in a country where it's legal. A lot of K-1 same-sex couples have a partner who is a citizen of a developing country and the foreign partner can't easily get a visitor visa to go to one of the 29 countries. 9

Not that they should. We have a straightforward way for them to come that's available to heterosexual couples. Test, quarantine and let them marry. 10

Let me clarify something not clear from before. K-1s in 2 categories are suffering. Those in the ban countries as I noted. And those everywhere else who aren't getting their visas adjudicated because they're considered low priority by consulates. Same sex impacted by both. 11