Proteus Bicycles, a popular bike shop in Route 1 in College Park, came under new ownership last month after the store’s owner sold the business in order to keep her family intact.
The Gazette reports that Jill DiMauro, who bought Proteus in 2002, was compelled to sell the shop after her wife, who is Canadian, was forced to return to her home country when her visa expired. The two were married in Canada in 2007 and while Maryland recently became the seventh state to legalize same-sex marriage, federal law—including immigration statutes—does not acknowledge DiMauro’s.
So DiMauro’s spouse will be moving back to Canada for at least the next year, when she will be eligible to re-apply for United States residency, while DiMauro will move to Upstate New York in order to be close by. The couple, who met in 2002, plans to do everything by the book, The Gazette reports:
“[My partner] has always been here legally,” DiMauro said. “I refuse to break the law.”
Citizens and legal permanent residents can sponsor their spouses to get legal resident status, said Brian Mouton, legal director at the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. But because the federal government defines marriage as between one man and one woman, immigration status cannot be transferred to spouses in same-sex marriages, he said.
While the Obama administration announced in February 2011 that it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 law that defined marriage in the eyes of the federal government as the union of one man and one woman, the policy is still on the books. Since the White House’s announcement last year, House Republicans have taken it upon themselves to uphold DOMA and earlier this week asked the Supreme Court to take on the case.
DiMauro sold Proteus to group that includes longtime customers and employees who she hopes will continue the shop’s brand of community engagement, an approach that includes group bike rides, pot-luck dinners and a network of customers that stretches as far north as New Jersey. Still, for some of the new owners, the acquisition is bittersweet.
“I wish this was not the reason they were leaving,” Laurie Lemieux told The Gazette.
Although President Obama announced last month his personal support for same-sex marriage, there’s been no indication that his beliefs will translate into policy anytime soon.
Canada is one of 11 countries around the world where full marriage equality is the law.
