US court rules that asylum seeker can’t be bisexual because he married a woman
A court in the US has determined that a Jamaican man cannot be bisexual because he is married to a woman.
A three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals determined that Ray Fuller, 51, from Jamaica, can’t be bisexual because he married a woman.
The court found that the man shouldn’t be granted asylum based on his sexual orientation because they claim he is lying about it.
The case brought by Fuller highlighted that he had been in relationships with men and women.
He has been attacked because of his sexual orientation and has been stoned for having sex with a man.
Fuller told the court that he has had his face sliced with a knife, has been robbed at gunpoint while being called homophobic slurs, has been shot twice in the back and buttock, and has been disowned by his family.
But a majority of the panel upheld an immigration judge’s decision claiming that he is not bisexual because he married a woman.
The Seventh Circuit judges acknowledged that the immigration judge had misunderstood what it means to be bisexual, but still upheld the ruling.
They suggested that because none of Fuller’s male lovers would testify, and because of discrepancies in his story, there was not enough evidence to grant him asylum.
Judge Posner wrote in his dissent that the immigration judge “is oblivious” to the meaning of bisexuality.
The judge writes: “Instead he fastened on what are unquestionable, but trivial and indeed irrelevant, mistakes or falsehoods in Fuller’s testimony, for example that he ‘confused his sisters’ names, mixed up a sister with his mother, and gave different figures for the number of sisters that he had.’ What this has to do with his sexual proclivities eludes me.”
He questioned why Fuller would claim to be bisexual if he is hot, adding that he knows “that if he failed in his effort to remain he would be in grave danger of persecution when having lost his case he was shipped off to Jamaica. No doubt once back in Jamaica he could deny being bisexual—but no one who was either familiar with this litigation, or had been one of his persecutors before he left Jamaica for the United States, would believe (or at least admit to believing) his denial.”
Posner says that the “weakest part” of the opinion by the lower judge is “its conclusion that Fuller is not bisexual”.
“A conclusion premised on the fact that he’s had sexual relations with women (including a marriage). Apparently, the immigration judge does not know the meaning of bisexual. The fact that he refused even to believe there is hostility to bisexuals in Jamaica suggests a closed mind and gravely undermines his critical finding that Fuller is not bisexual.”
It is expected that Fuller will be deported from the US in the coming days.
