In 2016, his green card was taken to a Hollywood apartment he shared with Richard for decades in the same building where I met them so long ago.Ī documentary about Richard and Tony called “Partnership with Limited Liability” came out in 2014, and when I watched it again on the Tubi streaming channel, I wanted to throw things at the screen. Tony petitioned for his own green card on the grounds that he was the widower of a U.S. Unfortunately, Richard died in December before the couple had a chance.Ī few months after Richard’s death, the Supreme Court repealed the Marriage Protection Act, finally giving equal rights to same-sex couples and allowing one gay husband to sponsor another to get a green card. So far, several states have legalized same-sex marriage, and counsel has advised couples to repeat their oaths. In 2012, the case of legalizing same-sex marriage reached the Supreme Court, but for Richard time passed.
The couple soon became lonely from friends and family in Los Angeles, so they slipped back to the US, where they were required to lie still to avoid deportation.Īs time went on, public opinion about equality of marriage was slowly changing. Most of all it was bad, for example, when Tony received a letter from the INS stating that they do not recognize a marriage “between two fagots.” In 1985, after exhausting their legal appeals, the couple was expelled from the country and fled to England. I lost Richard and Tony after moving in 1978, but had time to fight them when their story hit the news. Just a few years earlier, interracial marriages had finally been legalized across the country, so it seemed logical that same-sex unions would emerge, but none of us could have imagined how long it would take. It was the turbulent, pre-AIDS seventies, so Richard and Tony didn’t get much support in their efforts to legalize their relationship. It was the first time I thought about gay rights to marriage, and most gays I knew at the time didn’t think about it either.
Thus began a long struggle for recognition of their relationship and prevention of Tony’s deportation. They traveled to Colorado, got married and returned to California, only to find that the state would not fulfill their status.
Shortly before I moved into a house next door, Richard and Tony heard about a Colorado clerk who was willing to give a marriage license to same-sex couples. Unfortunately, at the time, local authorities did not issue licenses to two people of the same sex, and homosexuals were considered “deviant” who could not legally immigrate to the United States. At that time, it was quite easy for a citizen to get legal status for their spouses, so this happy couple decided to tie the knot. First, while Richard was a naturalized citizen, Tony was in the country illegally because his nonimmigrant visa expired.
They met in the early ’70s, and by the time I met them, they knew they wanted to make their relationship permanent, but faced two serious challenges. Richard Adams was a dark handsome young Filipino who grew up in the United States, and Tony Sullivan was an Australian similar to the blond Robert Redford. Back in 1975, I moved into a fabulous vintage apartment where my neighbors were a charming couple who had just embarked on a long journey that would receive news for decades. As June is a month of honor and a month of weddings, I am reminded of a love story that touched me and shaped my feelings about marriage equality.