"This is an important step forward," said Thomas B. Stoddard, executive director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Kevin Cathcart, executive director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, said Bishop DiMarzio should "take his absurd arguments and stay home."

But Thomas B. Stoddard, executive director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, said: "We generally oppose all acts of this kind by the government.

Tom Stoddard, executive director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a rights organization, said the idea behind the immigration service's assertion was nonsense.