What Rainbow?

Eric German and Arthur Thomas got hitched a year ago -- sort of. They weren't making a political statement or even being terribly romantic, they just wanted to get Thomas out of the homeless shelter he was living in. "I was in the hospital, and he has no family and I have no family," recalls Thomas. "So he took care of me. We kind of bonded."

They're a black gay version of the odd couple. Thomas is a towering, gravely-voiced guy who's fond of football jerseys and won't hesitate to tell you to fuck off when he thinks you need to hear it; German cuts a slight, soft-spoken figure and carefully ponders each word he parcels out, as though he has a limited supply. Still, you get the feeling German's got Thomas's number. He can make Thomas take his HIV meds, even on those difficult mornings when he's rebelling against himself, and he helps his man stay sober. "If I didn't have this individual, there's no telling where I would be," Thomas admits, "because, you know, everywhere you go there's drugs. And I can say, 'Today I feel like getting high, so let's just stay home.'"

They're both enrolled in a government program that helps poor people living with HIV pay rent and buy food and other necessities. Last spring, when Thomas was released from the hospital, German didn't want him going back into the shelters. So he suggested they get a place in his building in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. Once impolitely known as "Do or Die Bed-Stuy," the slowly gentrifying area is one of a shrinking few in New York City where a couple on a budget as tight as German and Thomas's can still find an affordable but comfortable one-bedroom.

But when the duo told their case workers in city government of their plans to shack up, they got surprising news: The only way they could live together was if they got on New York City's domestic partner registry. In the process, Thomas's case would have to be closed and folded into German's. "We didn't want to be domestic partners," German explains. They were in love, sure, but they hadn't planned on such formalities. "That's the only way he could stay with me. So we went and did that."

The couple didn't so much mind the shotgun wedding, but it created a nightmare of paperwork and legal wrangling. The order from the city caseworkers, it turns out, was completely arbitrary. The city's domestic partner registry actually carries no legal weight (and in any case there is no rule against people getting public assistance living together). So Thomas's closed case has delayed everything from his medical care to food aid payments.

It's unclear why the couple's case workers misled them. Maybe it was an honest mistake. Maybe they were overzealously implementing the going wisdom in today's public assistance programs, which holds that poor people are better off when they're married. Either way, the whole experience has soured Thomas on the idea of the law getting involved in his love for any reason. When asked about the recent hoopla surrounding gay marriage, he barely musters enough interest to dismiss the conversation. "It's a rich people thing," he grouses.

Chicago's Reverend Gregory Daniels agrees. Daniels has earned a place in history. Not because he has done anything important, but because he brought us a quote no historian of this year's gay marriage standoff will be able to resist citing. During a Boston press conference, staged by the rightwing Family Research Council on the eve of Massachusetts' constitutional convention, the black minister pledged, "If the KKK was opposing same-sex marriage, Reverend Daniels would ride with them."

Daniels' hyperbole was appalling, but hardly unexpected. The religious right's battle plan has long centered on mobilizing black conservatives in the culture wars. The debate over same-sex marriage is not nearly the first act in the homophobic minstrel show that black conservatives like Daniels are performing. But it has arguably been the most influential -- and widespread. From Boston to Atlanta, black ministers are standing in for the white right as the public face of "traditional values." And in the Bronx, Latino clergy are joining in, forming a rainbow coalition of bigotry.