Proposition 2, an amendment to the Texas Constitution banning same-sex marriages, would disproportionately affect gay Hispanics, a national gay rights group said this week.

Officials with the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force released their findings based on the report “Hispanic and Latino Same-Sex Couple Households in the United States: A Report from the 2000 Census.” The information was released Tuesday during a news conference in Houston.

With three of the top 10 metropolitan areas with the highest number of Hispanic same-sex households located in Texas, including San Antonio, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, and the vote on the amendment Nov. 8, officials said they felt compelled to release the information.

“Many of the 1,138 federal benefits and protections of marriage are designed to help families save money, purchase a home and better provide for their children,” Jason Cianciotto, author of the study and research director for the Task Force Policy Institute, said in a press release. “This study shows that Hispanic same-sex couple families would not only benefit from the ability to marry, but also are disproportionately harmed by anti-same-sex marriage laws and constitutional amendments.

“For example, the inability to marry prevents individuals from sponsoring a non-citizen same-sex partner for immigration purposes, which disproportionately threatens the stability of Hispanic same-sex couple families, many with children.”

The findings are from a report that analyzed data from the 2000 Census, the most recent year available from the government agency.

“This report underscores yet again the critical need for racial and economic justice in our nation,” said Matt Foreman, task force executive director. “While all same-sex couple families face legal and economic discrimination, the study indicates it is much harder for Hispanic same-sex couples because they earn less, are raising more children, and must overcome much steeper immigration and language barriers,”

Officials said based on the report, Hispanics are less likely than their white counterparts to be United States citizens and more likely to raise children on smaller incomes.

If passed, Proposition 2 would ban gay marriages and forbid state recognition of any legal status identical or similar to marriage. It’s up for vote Nov. 8.

‘We don’t have those freedoms’

According to the report, Hispanic gay couples are raising children at more than three times the rate of white and black same-sex couples. It also states that white gay couples earn an average of $65,000 a year, while Hispanics bring in less than $40,000 annually.

The report states that about 51 percent of gay Hispanic couples are not United States citizens. For couples consisting of Hispanic and white men, 8 percent were not U.S. citizens.

Houston couple Sergio Sarmiento and Christopher Rigdon was one of many gay couples that participated in the study. The two educators have been together for six years. Rigdon is a native Houstonian and Sarmiento comes from Columbia.

The couple said that if gay marriages were legal in Texas, then they couple realize the benefits of straight couples in regards to insurance benefits and property distribution if one died.

“That is one of the reasons why Sergio came to America—to benefit from its freedoms,” Rigdon said. “It’s frustrating because we don’t have those freedoms.”

Sarmiento had to be sponsored by his employer to gain citizenship.

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