RAINBOW OF HOPE
Group helps LGBTQ escape oppression.
When Chris Morrissey learned she couldn’t bring the woman she loved to live with her in the country of her birth, it set her on a decades-long path to help Canada become a country where any two people who love each other can be together and feel safe.
Morrissey, 72, and her partner, Bridget Coll, met in the U.S. but spent the better part of a decade living and working together in Santiago, Chile during the heyday of the Pinochet regime in the 1980s.
Morrissey now runs Rainbow Refugee, an organization that helps people who are persecuted in their own country because of their sexual orientation gain asylum in Canada. But her work in this field started with a much more personal struggle.
When the couple left Chile in 1989, Morrissey returned to Canada and Coll, a dual U.S.Irish citizen, entered Canada on a visitor visa. The two wanted to stay together permanently, but the law at the time only allowed married, heterosexual couples to sponsor their partners.
“It was pretty clear from the get-go that there was no way that Bridget could immigrate,” Morrissey said, explaining the only possible avenue was as a skilled worker, and Coll was too old and lacked the education credentials. “We decided the only way to make this happen would be to go to court.”
The pair launched a legal challenge under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, alleging discrimination on the basis of gender, family and sexual orientation because Morrissey was not able to sponsor a partner the same way a heterosexual person could.
“Miraculously ... it was kind of a short route because they decided that even though Bridget had not met the (skilled worker) requirements previously, suddenly she did,” Morrissey explained, speculating the government wanted to avoid a court case.
But the single victory was not enough. Because of the publicity surrounding the court challenge, the pair heard from many same-sex couples in identical situations, Morrissey said, and decided to continue their fight to change the law.
New laws open doors
They formed a group called the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Task Force, later renamed Canadian Immigration for Same-Sex Partners. Morrissey travelled regularly to Ottawa to make presentations before Parliament’s standing committee on citizenship and immigration.
In 2002, the government introduced new laws that allowed one common-law partner to sponsor another. Same-sex couples could use this avenue, which also opened the door to unmarried heterosexual couples for the first time. But it was of little use to many same-sex couples because they often don’t live together in their home countries due to fear of persecution, Morrissey said.
“I went back (to Ottawa) and said, ‘Look, you’ve got two people from two different countries, neither of which accepts their relationship or ... where they can actually live together to establish the common-law relationship.’”
In response, the government created a third category, conjugal partners, which does not require the couple to live together.
As the group grew, they built a website with information for LGBTQ refugees seeking Canada’s protection. They were inundated with requests, Morrissey said, and soon realized helping refugees was much different than the immigration advocacy work they were used to. The group set up Rainbow Refugee in 2000. Morrissey assumed the group would help those living overseas who were in need of protection.
“However, when we had our very first meeting, the majority of people that showed up were LGBTQ folks in the Lower Mainland who ... were wanting to become permanent residents because they were afraid to go back to their own countries,” she said. “Some were students, some were workers, some were here illegally. And so we said, ‘Oh my God, there’s no way that we can start sponsoring people from overseas when we’ve got this whole group of people who are here.’”
Rainbow Refugee volunteers began hosting monthly drop-in sessions to help people through the process of making a refugee claim.
“Your claim is based on your fear of persecution as a result of your sexual orientation if you’re sent back. So you have to demonstrate that you are, in fact, a member of that particular social group,” Morrissey said. “People live their lives for protection in the closet and then when they get here, they have to be super out of the closet. So you’ve got those two extremes.”
Although refugee claims heard in Vancouver are less likely to be successful than in other parts of the country, almost all the people Rainbow Refugee has helped in the past 15 years have been accepted, Morrissey said.
“I’ve gone to many, many refugee hearings here in Vancouver and the stories are compelling and the stories are consistent,” she said. “Over 15 years I’d say I can count on the fingers of one hand the people who have been denied.”
‘Prove that they’re gay’
In 2010, then immigration minister Jason Kenney approached Rainbow Refugee with a pilot project through which the federal government would provide some start-up money if Rainbow Refugee could find groups of people willing to privately sponsor LGBTQ refugees.
Such groups must provide financial and social support for refugees the first year they are in Canada and work through one of the organizations — mostly religious groups — that has a signed agreement with the government allowing them to sponsor refugees.
The United Church of Canada is one of those groups. Gary Paterson, an openly gay minister at St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church in Vancouver, said the church has recognized for more than a decade that the situation for LGBTQ individuals is difficult in many parts of the world.
“It troubles me greatly that often that persecution or oppression is aided and abetted by some segments of the Christian community,” he said. “I think because of our experience in building inclusive communities and an awareness of the oppression that LGBTQ people experience, there’s been a real openness and a willingness, almost a feeling of responsibility, that we should assist in sponsoring refugees who are LGBTQ.”
Asked how many the United Church has supported to come to B.C., Paterson said: “Not a lot because it is so darned difficult.”
Making a refugee claim on the basis of sexual orientation means someone has to come out of the closet wherever they find themselves, Paterson said. “If they’re in a refugee camp, for instance, then persecution by people who had been friends before is always possible. We’ve heard stories where people are told they need to prove that they’re gay. People say, ‘You’re just using gay to jump the line.’”
Last year, the church sponsored a gay couple who came from Iran via Turkey and eventually ended up in Kamloops, Paterson said. In 2012, there were three LGBT people the B.C. branch of the church teamed up to sponsor.
During the last five years, Rainbow Refugee has coordinated 32 sponsorships across Canada. Five of those came to B.C. — two Syrian couples and an Iraqi who has since joined his partner in Seattle. All were men, Morrissey said, and going forward the organization will be looking to correct that imbalance.
“Our organization is particularly concerned about the women, about the lesbians and trans folk, because it’s much more difficult for them to get to Canada in the first place.”