Earlier this month, the Obama administration acquiesced to the demands of immigration reform advocates and announced that it would review all 300,000 active deportation cases to ensure that they are consistent with the nation’s enforcement priorities. The case-by-case review will allow the government to focus its resources and efforts on high priority targets — individuals who pose a threat to public safety and national security or repeat immigration law violators — while exempting low priority groups, including binational same-sex couples, from deportation.

Gay and lesbian Americans face additional complications because the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages and prohibits couples who are legally married in one of the six states (and DC) that now allow marriage equality from petitioning the federal government for the same immigration benefits that are afforded to separate-sex relationships.

The legally married Dutch spouse of congressional candidate Mike Williams — who is running in Connecticut’s 5th district — may soon be a victim of the discriminatory policy, since he could face deportation after losing his job. Williams will be unable to sponsor his husband Bart Hoedemaker for permanent residency because their relationship has no status under federal immigration regulations:

“Most people don’t realize about DOMA, they think, well, you’re married in Connecticut, it’s fine, and they’re shocked to find out that it doesn’t matter,” said Williams. But no matter what the Administration does about enforcement, Williams cannot sponsor Hoedemaker for a green card — a right Williams’ sister will soon exercise on behalf of her Argentinian fiancé. Without a green card, not only could Hoedemaker’s status be subject to the whims of a new Administration or a Congressional action, he would not be eligible to work.

It’s unlikely that Hoedmaker’s case will qualify for review under the administration’s new policy, since the process only applies to cases already in deportation. And many more LGBT couples may be facing a similar fate. The Immigration Policy Center estimates that there are “approximately 36,000 same-sex binational couples living in the United States, and approximately half of these couples are raising children.” President Obama has yet to come out in support of full marriage equality, but he has endorsed legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. The so-called Respect for Marriage Act currently has 29 co-sponsors in the Senate and 121 supporters in the House.

Minnesotans won’t vote on a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage until November 2012, but the ballot campaign is already heating up. The coalition of groups supporting the ban, Minnesota for Marriage, is now distributing a series of talking points advocating against marriage equality, claiming that anyone who doesn’t support a “new definition of marriage” will be “treated under the law just like racists and bigots, and will be punished for their beliefs.” Here is a quick guide to responding to their talking points (PDF):

CLAIM: “Religious groups who have refused to make their facilities available for same-sex couples have lost their state tax exemption.”

REALITY: There’s really only one example of this, and it’s not actually an example at all because the group’s religious tax exemption was not impacted. When the Methodist Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association refused to allow a same-sex couple to have a civil union ceremony at its boardwalk pavilion, the pavilion lost its real estate tax exemption. It had been exempted under New Jersey’s “Green Acres Program,” an environmental protection effort which requires properties be accessible to all citizens.

CLAIM: “Religious groups like Catholic Charities in Boston and Washington, DC have had to choose between fulfilling their social mission based on their religious beliefs, or acquiescing to this new definition of marriage,” including being “forced to close their charitable adoption agencies.”

REALITY: Any religious charity group that has ended its services has done so voluntarily. Groups that offer services like foster care and adoption placement often receive governmental funding to support their work. They are welcome to continue to receive that money if they abide by the law and don’t discriminate against certain couples. If they refuse to offer services to same-sex couples, they may still continue operating — they just aren’t entitled to public subsidies.

CLAIM: “Whenever schools educate children about marriage, they will have no choice but to teach this new genderless institution. In Massachusetts, kids as young as second grade were taught about gay marriage.”

REALITY: In some cases, those second graders were learning about their own parents’ marriage. To not discuss same-sex families — even in states that don’t have marriage equality — is to attempt to erase them from schools and communities.

CLAIM: “Wedding professionals have been fined or harassed for refusing to participate in a same-sex ceremony.”

REALITY: The issue at stake here has little to do with marriage law; it’s a matter of non-discrimination. If someone runs a public business and refuses to provide service to a couple merely because of their sex or sexual orientation, that’s a violation of state laws prohibiting discrimination.

CLAIM: Licensed professionals put their licenses at risk if they do not treat a married same-sex couple as married.

REALITY: Concerns about license qualifications and standards should be taken up with state licensing boards and professional organizations, not through laws about how marriage is defined.

CLAIM: Those who oppose marriage equality “would be the legal equivalent of bigots” and the law will “penalize traditional marriage supporters.”

REALITY: The law punishes individuals who break laws, and nobody is attempting to legislate against thought. Minnesota for Marriage wants voters to believe that they’ll feel less guilty or self-conscious being prejudiced against same-sex couples if the law is on their side, but theirs is already the unpopular position. A majority of Americans already support marriage equality, and a majority of Minnesotans oppose a constitutional ban. Considering a majority of Americans did not approve of interracial marriage until almost 25 years after it became legal, the ban’s proponents are already incredibly behind the times.

CLAIM: “Shifting the focus of our marriage laws away from the interests of children and society as a whole… will result in the most profound long-term consequences.”

REALITY: Supporting marriage equality is a pro-children position. Children of same-sex couples benefit from the legal protections and financial security their parents access when they can marry.

The most important thing to remember is this: if the amendment does not pass next November, same-sex marriage will still not be legal under Minnesota law. The ballot initiative only addresses the question of whether discrimination against same-sex couples should be enshrined in Minnesota’s Constitution. Anyone who thinks the state’s constitution should be used to take away rights should not be in the business of making changes to it.

For an expanded discussion of this Minnesota for Marriage literature, Jeremy Hooper has also posted a debunk.

The American Foundation for Equal Rights, which yesterday petitioned a judge to release video recordings of last year’s Proposition 8 trial, has released this handy guide of “7 stunning moments” from the trial that opponents of marriage equality “don’t want you to see”:

– The Proponents’ own witness, David Blankenhorn, agreed under oath that “the principle of equal human dignity must apply to gay and lesbian persons. … [w]e would be more American on the day we permitted same-sex marriage than we were the day before.”

– Blankenhorn stated under oath: “I believe that adopting same-sex marriage would be likely to improve the well-being of gay and lesbian households and their children.” He also stated that the children of adoptive parents do as well if not better than the children of biological parents

– Political Science Professor Kenneth Miller, a witness for the Proponents, conceded: “My view is that at least some people voted for Proposition 8 on the basis of anti-gay stereotypes and prejudice.”

As David Boies –- one half of the legal team challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8 — explained during a now-infamous appearance on Face the Nation, the problem for anti-gay activists is that they simply don’t have any evidence to make their case. “In a court of law you’ve got to come in and you’ve got to support those opinions, you’ve got to stand up under oath and cross-examination,” Boies explained. “There simply wasn’t any evidence, there weren’t any of those studies. There weren’t any empirical studies. That’s just made up. That’s junk science. It’s easy to say that on television. But a witness stand is a lonely place to lie. And when you come into court you can’t do that.”

Yesterday, District Judge James Ware promised he “won’t delay very long” before ruling on a motion to unseal video recordings of last year’s Proposition 8 trial. Supporters of the proposition argued in court today that releasing the video would expose their witnesses to public scrutiny and harassment.

The Boston Globe’s Matt Viser traces the bad blood between presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Rick Perry to a 2002 dispute over the Boy Scout’s participation in the Winter Olympic Games:

Perry, who proudly wears an Eagle Scout pin on his lapel, has harshly criticized Romney for a decision made while he ran the Olympics not to allow Boy Scouts to be official volunteers during the games.

“Several years have gone by, and neither Mitt Romney nor anyone else who served as an official of the 2002 Winter Olympics has given a clear and logical explanation of why the door to volunteerism was shut on a willing ‘army’ of Boy Scout volunteers,’’ Perry wrote in his 2008 book, “On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts are Worth Fighting For.’’

The Texas governor suggests that Romney made the decision based on political opportunism, citing the controversial issue at the time of Boy Scouts not allowing gay troop masters. Romney said then that Boy Scouts couldn’t volunteer because most weren’t 18 years old, the mandatory minimum age the Olympics set for volunteers.

“Whether pressure from gay rights groups caused Olympic organizers to resist volunteer assistance from the scouts, we know that Romney, as a political candidate in the politically liberals [sic] state of Massachusetts, has parted ways with the scouts on its policies over the involvement of gay individuals in scout activities,’’ Perry wrote in his 2008 book On My Honor. “He once said during a debate with Senator Ted Kennedy in 1994, ‘I feel that all people should be allowed to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation.’ ’’ However, Romney prefaced his statement with, “I support the right of the Boy Scouts of America to decide what it wants to do on that issue.”

The Boy Scouts prohibit atheists, agnostics, and “avowed” homosexual people from leadership roles. In 2004, the organization adopted the following policy statement: “Boy Scouts of America believes that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the obligations in the Scout Oath and Scout Law to be morally straight and clean in thought, word, and deed. The conduct of youth members must be in compliance with the Scout Oath and Law, and membership in Boy Scouts of America is contingent upon the willingness to accept Scouting’s values and beliefs. Most boys join Scouting when they are 10 or 11 years old. As they continue in the program, all Scouts are expected to take leadership positions. In the unlikely event that an older boy were to hold himself out as homosexual, he would not be able to continue in a youth leadership position.”