From the History of ISSUES: The Cross of Christ

September 19, 1982:

Immigration and naturalization laws in the U.S. provides for the exclusion of any person with questionable moral character or who has any of a broad range of specific illnesses. The Immigration and Nationalization Service (INS) is required by law to exclude all known homosexual persons, upon medical certification of their “sexual illness.”

The Church, in any resolution dealing with immigration and refugee policies must include in the “protected classes” the words, “sexual orientation,” because of the clearly discriminatory behavior of the U.S. Government toward homosexual persons…

… the Church’s inclusion of this category, and its recognition of the prejudice to which homosexual persons are subject, should be made with the awareness that the discriminatory policies of the Government towards the homosexual community require an incredible massing of resources for defense against such depredations. The time of lawyers, the costs of transcripts, the pain and inconvenience of multiple court appearances for victims and witnesses -- all these resources are urgently needed for more creative tasks within the homosexual community. At this point, the services are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. These monies and services could be dealing with other key issues, were the Government forced, through Church and citizen protest, to give up this arbitrary, unconstitutional invasion into the private lives of refuges and immigrants.