Pictured: Olivier De Wulf of Belgium and Steve Boullianne of Los Angeles, with their two adopted boys and Uniting American Families Act lead sponsor Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY). They have few options open to them to remain together as a family, in Belgium or America. Their story is here.

The New York Times posted an article yesterday, “Obama Wins Unlikely Allies in Immigration,” about the administration’s efforts to rally support for comprehensive immigration reform by allying with Christian Evangelicals. The very fact that this initiative exists is troubling enough.

But buried at the at the bottom is this gem:

Mr. Staver was one of six evangelical leaders, including two prominent black evangelicals, who issued a statement last month advocating a comprehensive new law. One, J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican candidate for Ohio governor in 2006 and now a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group, said he expected more evangelical leaders to come on board.

But Mr. Blackwell said the whole effort could implode if the final legislation extended family reunification provisions to same-sex couples where one spouse did not have legal status. For evangelicals, he said, “That would be a deal-breaker.”

Cross-posted at Daily Kos. Rec if you got it please.Got it? Obama administration is allying with Ken Blackwell (yes, that Ken Blackwell) of the Family Research Council-who spend $25,000 lobbying for the Ugandan “Kill the Gays” bill-to find support for immigration reform.

Note too the use of “final legislation.” Leaving the Democrats free to make a big dog and pony show of reassuring our community we’re included while the battle rages. But it will all be kabuki. If the Evangelicals are calling us a deal-breaker, the fix is already in, and Blackwell’s holding the smoking gun.

The Evangelicals are not going to budge, they’re saying so right now. If the Christian Taliban is going to get behind this bill, they will exact a price for support, and that will be the scalp of the gay community. And the fierce advocate will deliver it on a silver platter.

Asked to choose between Evangelical support and our community’s, you just bet your bottom dollar how this will play out. They’ll string us along, using our community to rally other support, and in the end, we’ll get jettisoned, just like they did before. The game is now over for LGBT inclusion in comprehensive immigration reform.

Eventually the Democrats will send someone out to talk to our community and tell us, “Gosh, darn it, we really fought, but what could we do?”

And the DHS will continue indefinitely with its policy of deporting our lawfully wedded spouses and destroying our families. Same as it ever was. Change? Not applicable to second-class citizens.