I moved to the Netherlands from the San Francisco Bay Area in March 2000 to be with my partner and future wife, Lin. Lin and I met in 1982 in Amsterdam and became close friends. Sixteen years later, our deep love for each other turned to passion, and we started a long distance commute, seeing each other whenever possible, and spending much of our time together on the telephone or online.After more than a year of flying back and forth for short visits, we decided we had had enough of the long distance relationship and that I should move to the Netherlands. We got engaged, promising to marry as soon as the Dutch changed the marriage law to include same-sex couples. (photo: Gon Buurman; Love Exiles)

We married on May 4, 2001. The story of our wedding appeared in the June 19, 2001, issue of The Advocate. Our wedding photos have appeared in the annual report of the Akzo Nobel Pension Fund, in several photo exhibitions, on the cover of the book Wij Gaan Ons Echt Verbinden, and in the Human Rights Watch report Family Unvalued. Since Lin's son was still in high school, Lin asked me to Read More Love Exiles

Martha McDevitt-Pugh, who left the United States in the end to be with her life partner, Lin, told us, “You don’t casually date someone across an ocean.”101 Yet many binational same-sex couples have to. Perhaps the non-U.S. partner cannot stay legally in the U.S.—or cannot even get a visa to enter it; perhaps the U.S. partner, for reasons of job or family, cannot move away. Couples hoping to build a life together are unable to create a common home. Plane tickets and phone calls become the lifelines on which a relationship survives. Also Human Rights Watch - Family, Unvalued.

Tags: Love Exiles, Human Rights Watch, Family Unvalued, gay immigration, equality