What they didn’t know before moving to Idaho could fill a house, and in many ways it does.
The kitchen table holds stacks of legal papers. Medication bottles litter a nearby countertop. The two-story home Robert Ryan, 42, shares with his partner, Ralph Martinelli, 53, overlooks a quaint suburb west of Boise, a rural landscape of ruddy hills that doesn’t seem quite as welcoming as it once did.
A 2,400-mile move west once seemed like a chance at a fresh start, has instead it has delivered some hard lessons, especially about moving from a state that recognizes same-sex unions to one of the 21 states that don’t.
The couple was stunned when Ryan was dropped from the company insurance plan the two shared in New Jersey, where they were able to register as domestic partners. Idaho does not formally recognize same-sex couples.
“It didn’t even dawn on us that this would have an impact,” Ryan said. …
[Ryan] was dropped from the policy last October, shortly after the Konica Minolta company found the couple had moved to Idaho, where they couldn’t register as domestic partners. In 2006, 63 percent of Idaho voters approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of of a man and a woman, effectively outlawing same-sex unions.
Martinelli is still covered by a COBRA policy through the company. Ryan now pays $650 a month for a separate COBRA insurance policy that will expire in March 2009.
“It’s ridiculous,” Ryan said. “It’d be like a married couple being forced to get remarried every time they moved.” …
“We fell in love with the area, we love Idaho,” Martinelli said. “But here it is 2008 and people are still being discriminated against.”
FFS, what did you expect, guys? I’m sorry it didn’t “dawn on you” before you moved from the Near-Queer-Paradise of New Jersey to the most gay-hating state this side of Virginia, but, frankly, it’s your own darn fault you failed to inform yourselves of the repercussions first.
There’s something called the Internet, guys — and it would have taken you all of two seconds to Google gay + rights + idaho, and find out… Welll, let’s see what happens when we Google gay + rights + idaho:
Idaho Gay Rights - The Fight for Gay Rights in Idaho Idaho already bans gay marriage. What other restrictions is Idaho trying to pass against gays and lesbians? lesbianlife.about.com/od/lesbianactivism/a/IdahoGayRts.htm - 22k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
First hit. Gee, that was real hard to find.
Coldhearted? Nope. Just ticked off at yet another example of fellow gay people who don’t even know what rights they don’t have — and don’t care until they’re the ones smacked by the Big Anti-Gay Stick.
How do I know Ryan and Martinelli don’t care about LGBT equality (or didn’t, at least until now)? Because they were obviously unaware of the gaping chasm of inequality among states. Because they obviously never even paid attention to the freaking mainstream media for the past eight years, when state after state after state (what’s it up to now, 22 states? 26? 28?) caved in to the Radical Religious Right’s campaign of hate against us and banned marriage equality based on whether both partners had the same genitalia.
How can you even be gay without knowing this stuff?
In-your-face radio host Karel (with whom I agree about 50% of the time — but when I do agree with him, I agree 100%) summed it up best in his post-2004 election broadcast, when he slapped the entire gay “community” upside its collective head for letting our nonexistent rights slip away, because too many of us just don’t damn care:
Yesterday — November 2, 2004 — 11 states, almost one fifth of the electorate, voted on state constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage. All received overwhelming approval. …
As I read the optimistic outlook of it all by Evan Woflson, executive director of Freedom to Marry posted on this Web site, I have to say, Are you serious? You sound like a gay party doll as much as Ann Coulter is a Republican party doll. Victory trumps loss, lose it forward, bring about generational change… Oh, it all sounds good on paper, but the fact is, we’re big losers, and [Matt] Foreman was right: Our side does not have the time, the resources, or the infrastructure to beat back the zealots.
And why don’t we? Because not enough of us care about it, because not enough of us want it, that’s why. Don’t give me all this disempowered, disenfranchised, battered, low-self-esteem don’t-blame-us psychobabble. If we all wanted same-sex marriage or federally recognized civil unions, we’d have them. Because trust me, as a collective, we’ve got nothing but time and more resources at our disposal than our nongay counterparts, and if we connected ourselves to something more than online meeting places, we’d have quite an infrastructure.
But we simply don’t want it. …
Most of you don’t even know what states voted yesterday to outlaw marriage equality (they were Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Utah) but can tell me when the next circuit party, fund-raiser, or group meeting is, or what’s in the deleted scene from Collin Farrell’s new bioflick, Alexander. Many of you may not even know what your workplace’s or state’s stance on domestic partnership is, what benefits may or may not be granted to you or your partner. Many more couples haven’t even filled out the agreements. Not surprising, since 50% of you don’t have wills and 100% of you are going to die.
I’m just as guilty. It took Andrew and me 10 years to fill ours out. Who knew he’d die a little over a year later — 10th anniversary present and all.
Yeah, I know: Not everybody can be clued in, up to the minute, on every twist and turn in the fight for LGBT equality — but you’d think two responsible, middle-aged gay men whose very survival depends on legal recognition of their relationship (Ryan, you’ll see if you read the article, was covered under Martinelli’s insurance “for medication to treat his depression, anxiety and the childhood asthma that resurfaced from severe smoke inhalation” in the 9/11 attacks) would have at least enough motivation to find out how the wave of anti-gay legislation in this puritan country affects them.
What is it going to take to force all LGBT Americans to start caring about their rights — before they find themselves utterly and totally screwed by their own ignorance?
I wanted to update you on my latest plans before news gets out. Today, I am announcing my plan to join the Libertarian Party, because the Democratic Party no longer represents my vision for our great country. I wanted my supporters to get this news first, because you have been the ones who have kept my campaign alive since I first declared my candidacy on April 17, 2006.
Well, now, this changes things. Since I just found out about it — and since he doesn’t even have the Libertarian nomination yet — it’s far too early for me to make any immediate decisions.
I do, however, have a few thoughts:
1. If the Libertarian Party has half an ounce of sense, Mike Gravel will be its nominee, if on no other basis than Q factor + all those juicy crossover votes from Democrats who feel hung out to dry by being forced to choose between Obama and Clinton (and who are still pissed off that their first, or second, or even fifth choice dropped out before their state primary).
Now, hear tell there’s something like 15 other people competing for the Libertarian nod — which sounds like a lot of competition, until you realize you have absolutely no idea who any of these candidates are. (I certainly can’t name any without Googling, can you?)
In the early debates and who-knows-how-many interviews, Mike Gravel has done half the work for the Libs already. He won me over (after Kucinich, Gravel was neck-and-neck with Richardson as my number-two choice until Richardson made that lousy maricon remark).
2. Where the Libs will balk is on Gravel’s polar-opposite positions to some key issues, such as universal healthcare (Gravel supports it, the Libs don’t). In reality, Mike Gravel is the perfect Green Party candidate — but let’s face it, folks: the Greens just aren’t ready for prime time. (Hey, I’m a Greenie at heart, and even I can see that.) Moving into the Lib camp was a wise move for Gravel, financially and in terms of credibility.
3. The Obamacans are going to go insane. Yellow-dog Democrats won’t be too pleased, either, but the Obamacans are going to go absolutely insane when they realize how many votes from former Kucinich supporters, Edwards supporters, and newly-resurrected Gravel supporters will be siphoned off from their Heavenly Messiah Obama. And they will be siphoned off, big-time.
3. Of course Gravel won’t win the general election — and in truth, he will end up being a major spoiler to the “presumptive” nominee, Lord Barry Most High.
Will this result in President McCain? Frankly, I believe Candidate Obama will result in President McCain.
Of Obama and Clinton, I believe only Clinton stands a chance of beating McCain in the GE (and the latest Rasmussen poll agrees).
And I don’t believe Clinton is going to get the nomination.
4. I have problems with Gravel on two issues: the flat tax (in short, it really is unfair to the working poor) and Social Security (his plan for which sounds a little too close to privatization for my comfort — although on the surface I do rather like the idea of leaving surplus SSA funds to heirs, as long as he’s able to compensate for the loss).
Otherwise, I agree with Mike Gravel on every other issue. Everything. All of them.
5. One thing’s for sure: With Mike back in the race, it is not going to be politics as usual.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you look at Obama and see no “there” there.
If you’re an Obama supporter, nothing gets your goat like a Clinton supporter saying Obama is all style and no substance.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you ask Obama supporters to show you Obama’s substance.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you tell Clinton supporters that Obama is a “blank screen” onto which you’re supposed to project all your own hopes and dreams.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, the “blank screen” line just means there’s no “there” there.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you get angry when the Clinton supporters dismiss the “blank screen” concept.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you ask the Obama supporters to explain, in their own words, what Obama intends to actually do.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you direct all Clinton supporters to Obama’s Web site, to read somebody else’s words — and then complain that nobody reads Obama’s Web site.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you’ve combed through Obama’s Web site, repeatedly, and find no “there” there.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, Obama’s entire campaign smacks of a preachy, religious tent revival.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you rail against religious or “cult” comparisons — while you refuse to discuss issues and policies, instead following your “Camp Obama” leader’s directive to share only “personal conversion stories.”
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you hate using such a heavily-loaded word as “cult,” but you’re extremely uneasy about the many ways in which the Obama supporters resemble the followers of… well… sorry to say it, but… yes… Jim Jones.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you take extreme umbrage at being branded “cult-like” — but you have to consult Wikipedia to find out who Jim Jones was.
If you’re an Obama supporter, once you find out who Jim Jones was, you suddenly understand what “drinking the Kool-Aid” means, and you’re positively aghast anyone would aim that Jonestown allusion at you.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you want to scream at the Obama supporters: “What do you think everybody meant about ‘drinking the Kool-Aid’ in reference to the Bush administration all these years?!” And then you go bang your head against the nearest doorjamb until the pain stops.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you revile Bill Clinton — and by extension, Hillary — for signing NAFTA.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you’re still stunned that Bill Clinton was impeached over lying about a lousy blow job, yet all attempts to impeach George W. Bush, a bona fide war criminal, have failed.
If you’re an Obama supporter, Bill Clinton deserved to be impeached for lying about a lousy blow job, but you don’t support impeaching Bush or even Cheney, because Obama told you that he doesn’t support it, explaining that “you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breeches, and intentional breeches of the president’s authority” — which means that Bill’s lousy blow job is a far more “grave, grave breech” than anything Bush or Cheney has ever done.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you remember when former U.S. ambassador Joe Wilson risked everything to blow the lid off BushCo’s “yellowcake” lie and expose the treasonous, criminal betrayal of his wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame — which not only endangered her life, but endangered national security.
If you’re an Obama supporter, Joe Wilson is a paid Hillary operative, and Valerie Plame is a ditzy blonde who needed her husband to bail her out of an embarrassing situation.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you think Paul Krugman is a brilliant economist and fine political commentator, whose progressive perspective has remained consistent since the early 1990s.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you think Paul Krugman is an inbred knuckledragger too stupid to balance his own checkbook.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you’ve always thought Peggy Noonan was a bitter, nasty, right-wing hack, and your opinion has never changed.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you never realized how wise and erudite Peggy Noonan really was, until late January of 2008, when she ripped both Clintons up one side and down the other.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, nothing Peggy Noonan writes surprises you, since Noonan was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, after all, and— by the way, speaking of Ronald Reagan…
If you’re an Obama supporter, you agree with Obama’s praise of “that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship” Ronald Reagan employed in curbing “all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s.”
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you know that the “excesses of the 1960s and 1970s” Reagan’s right-wing backlash was targeting included the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement, the women’s liberation movement, the gay liberation movement, the consumer-protection movement, and the environmental movement. For starters.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you cry, “That’s not what he meant by ‘excesses of the 1960s and 1970s’!” but when pressed to explain what he did mean by “excesses of the 1960s and 1970s,” you start to mumble something about “fiscal excesses,” but stop mid-sentence when you realize that Reagan was a union-busting tax cutter who gutted the middle class and racked up the largest federal deficit in U.S. history.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you can’t comprehend how Michelle Obama’s remark, “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback,” could possibly be perceived as a dismissal of every American achievement of the past 25 years.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you wonder, as Sasha Issenberg put it, “So what did Michelle Obama think of the United States before her husband decided he wanted to run the place?”
If you’re an Obama supporter, you’re quick to correct the quote; what she really said was “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country, not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you don’t see how the addition of the word “really” changes the meaning — especially since both quotes are correct, as she made them in two different speeches on the same day.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you respond that no one can possibly understand what Michelle Obama really meant unless you’re black, because America has yet to earn the pride of a minority that has been oppressed, demonized, and dehumanized throughout the entirety of America’s 232-year history.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, and you’re gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, you wonder how you manage to find plenty of things to make you proud of America while remaining oppressed, demonized, and dehumanized throughout the entirety of America’s 232-year history.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you also wonder how Obama supporters can keep claiming that Barack Obama “transcends race,” when they keep using lines like “You can’t understand what Michelle Obama really meant unless you’re black.”
If you’re an Obama supporter, you’ve been demanding Clinton release her tax returns, right damn now!
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you’re not allowed to wonder why public access to Michelle Obama’s 1985 sociology thesis has been “Restricted until November 5, 2008.”
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you remember that too — and you also remember the way the Clintons were raked over the coals for it.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you remind the Clinton supporters that Michelle Obama’s thesis is irrelevant — Michelle isn’t running for president.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you remind the Obama supporters that Hillary Clinton wasn’t running for president in 1993, either.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you know Obama is going to take the general election in a landslide — just look at how he’s knocked Hillary flat on her butt in 24 state primary races already!
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you know that Obama wins caucuses and open primaries (in which registered Republicans and in some cases even unregistered voters) can vote for whoever they want, while Clinton wins closed primaries. (Obama has won eleven caucuses, five open primaries, and eight closed primaries — while Clinton has won nine closed primaries, three open primaries, and one caucus.)
If you’re an Obama supporter, you snark at Clinton supporters because they’re essentially saying: “Some states don’t count.”
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you know that Republicans who “cross over” to vote for the weaker Democrat in open Democratic primaries — like the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Bluey — are not an anomaly.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you scoff at Clinton supporters who just can’t believe that Obama is accomplishing exactly what he said he was going to do: convert Republicans and Independents to the Democratic Party.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you’re stunned by how deeply in denial the Obama supporters are about the Republicans’ long tradition of gaming the system.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you just don’t believe the Republicans are that smart, or that organized.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you wonder if the Obama supporters have even the first clue about the real meaning of “Rovian tactics.”
If you’re an Obama supporter, you’re convinced that Obama’s healthcare plan will give every American the same health-insurance coverage Obama himself enjoys.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you know Obama’s plan is a mandate for 15 million uninsured American children — and nobody else.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you rail against Clinton’s healthcare plan because you think it involves “wage garnishment.”
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you ask Obama supporters if they think Social Security (a.k.a. FICA) deductions are a form of “wage garnishment,” too.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you point out the vast unfairness of Clinton’s healthcare plan, as it will “penalize” childless Americans who have to pay for the coverage of somebody else’s kids.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you point out — again — that Obama’s plan is a mandate for 15 million uninsured American children, and nobody else — which means childless people will be paying for the coverage of somebody else’s kids.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you’re stuck for an answer to this one, especially as the Clinton supporters turn to the next logical question: “Do Obama supporters complain just as loudly about their taxes paying for ’somebody else’s kids’ to attend public school, too — or would they prefer school vouchers?”
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you’d never in a million years dream of attributing any of Obama’s negative campaign tactics or unlikeable personal characteristics to the fact that he’s black — that would be a truly despicable, racist thing to do.
If you’re an Obama supporter, there’s a strong chance you attribute everything you hate about Hillary Clinton to the idea that she’s having her period, or she’s not having her period, or she’s past having her period — all of which makes her “unhinged,” “hysterical,” “shrill,” “screeching,” a “harpy,” a “shrew,” a “bitch,” a “nag,” a “virago,” “weepy,” “emotionally unbalanced,” “losing it,” “cracking up,” “like your ex-wife yelling at you,” “an angry schoolmarm,” “insane,” subject to “mood swings,” “bipolar,” having “Mommy Moments,” having a “case of the vapors,” “on the rag,” and “in need of a Midol” — or, as Obama himself so slyly put it, “the claws come out” and she “launches attacks” … “periodically when she’s feeling down.”
If you’re an Obama supporter, you know it’s not your place to judge whether or not anyone is a “true Christian” — but you’re well within your rights to judge whether or not anyone is a “true Democrat.”
If you’re a Clinton supporter, the familiar strains of “You’re either with us or you’re against us” sends a chill down your spine.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you wax poetic over the way Obama is going to unite all Americans.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you tremble when you think of the last presidential candidate who billed himself as “a uniter, not a divider.”
If you’re an Obama supporter, “unity” means: Vilify, marginalize, ostracize, and ridicule Hillary Clinton and her supporters — while “reaching out” to Republicans; gloat like a soccer hooligan over Obama’s popularity; and tell Clinton supporters Obama doesn’t need their support, their donations, or their votes.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you can’t understand why Clinton supporters respond with: “OK, then win without us in November. Good luck.”
Yes, it looks like we’re going to have a Part 3!
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