Best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert
will join Immigration Equality in lobbying Congress for the Uniting
American Families Act (UAFA).
Gilbert, whose film adaptation of Eat,
Pray, Love starring Julia Roberts opened nationwide on Friday, is
half of a binational couple herself. She chronicled her experience
in her follow-up book Committed.
Immigration
Equality has been lobbying for passage of the UAFA, a bill that
would allow gay Americans to sponsor an immigrant partner for
citizenship. Currently, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) forbids
any federal agency from recognizing married gay couples.
Gilbert will join the Washington-based
group on September 30 to talk to lawmakers about the inequity.
“In addition to being unjust and
cruel and unconscionable,” Gilbert said in June, “these laws
[separating LGBT families] are stupid because they are taking away
some of the best and brightest minds and prospects out of the country
… they are forced to do nothing but fight for their lives. And
they are in a fight for their lives. And I am proud to be part of
that fight; I'm humbled and honored to be part of that fight.”
In June, Democrats
renewed a call to include the UAFA as part of a comprehensive
immigration reform package.