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Gay Couple Loses Benefits With Move

EAGLE, Idaho (AP) — 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 and Martinelli met four years ago when Ryan was out of work and battling depression he developed after surviving the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center. Ryan worked on the 74th floor of the south tower and escaped after the north tower was struck first. Six of the 20 employees he managed at Morgan Stanley were killed.

A year after they started dating, they registered as domestic partners in New Jersey. Martinelli was told he could insure Ryan under his policy as a Konica Minolta Business Solutions sales manager.

Ryan used the policy to pay for medication to treat his depression, anxiety and the childhood asthma that resurfaced from severe smoke inhalation in the attack.

But he 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.”

The couple is getting help from the American Civil Liberties Union, which is one of several groups that considers their case rare when compared to same-sex discrimination lawsuits across the country.

“I’m not sure there’s been anything like this,” said Tara Borelli, a staff attorney for the gay civil rights group Lambda Legal.

Nearly half, or 47 percent, of private insurance firms in the United States offer benefits to unmarried domestic partners, and 37 percent of those offer benefits to same-sex partners, according to a 2007 Kaiser Family Foundation study.

The national arm of the ACLU sent letters to Konica Minolta requesting Ryan be reinstated to the policy.

“We’ve been wrestling with Konica Minolta for months hoping that we could simply persuade them quietly to do the right thing,” said Jack Van Valkenburgh, executive director of the ACLU of Idaho. “They’ve made their decision.”

In a letter dated October 2, 2007, the company confirmed Ryan’s coverage would be terminated. Donald Warwick, vice president of human resources for Konica Minolta, declined to comment when contacted by the Associated Press.

The ACLU has not ruled out legal action against the company, Van Valkenburgh said.

A number of private insurance companies cover same-sex partners in Idaho, said Rep. Nicole LeFavour, D-Boise, who is the state’s only openly gay legislator and is covered by a Wells Fargo insurance policy with her partner of eight years.

LeFavour said she called Konica Minolta on behalf of the couple and the company cited the constituional amendment.

“There wasn’t anything we could do,” LeFavour said. “Idaho law just doesn’t have anything to help them right now.”

The Idaho Department of Insurance does not track how many firms offer domestic partner benefits, either to opposite or same-sex partners, said spokeswoman Tricia Carney. But she says such benefits are allowed. “It’s legal in the state,” Carney said. “But we don’t keep track of which companies offer it.”

Bryan Fischer, executive director of the Idaho Values Alliance, helped draft the Idaho amendment that bans same-sex marriage. He used the legislation to threaten legal action against the Moscow City Council in northern Idaho after the council approved domestic benefits for city employees in December.

The amendment was meant to protect the institution of marriage, not restrict companies that already cover same-sex couples, Fischer said.

“There are companies in Idaho who have been doing this for years,” Fischer said. “That’s between them and their employees.”

Martinelli still works for Konica Minolta and said he doesn’t plan to move.

“We fell in love with the area, we love Idaho,” Martinelli said. “But here it is 2008 and people are still being discriminated against.”

© 2008, YellowBrix, Inc.