<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div>Note to Butch: Happiness is not a political issue.</div><div><br></div><div>Courtesy of today's (November 14, 2014) Lewiston Tribune.</div><div><br></div><div>--------------------------------------</div><div><h1 style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; line-height: 27px; font-size: 24px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nez Perce County sees first same-sex marriage</h1><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It's a love story that started like many others, with an office flirtation.</span></p><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And thanks to recent court rulings, it culminated like many others, in marriage.</span></p><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"We decided Thursday night of last week that we were going to do it," Michael Chapman said of joining his new husband James Chapman in wedlock at the Nez Perce County Courthouse. "So we went in Friday morning and did it."</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The issuance of the license and subsequent wedding at the courthouse were the first in the county after same-sex marriage became legal in Idaho on Oct. 10, according to Nez Perce County Clerk-Auditor Patty O. Weeks. The Chapmans will make their home in the Lewiston Orchards and raise Michael's 4-year-old son, Dominic Laming, with the help of the boy's mother, Tabatha Laming.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">James, 31, and Michael, 23, met about a year and a half ago when they worked together at a call center in Spokane. James said he just had to engage in a little good-natured teasing, like messing with Michael's chair.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I couldn't help it," James said, smiling at his new husband. "He looked like a giant dork."</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">James gave Michael a ride home one day, and the casual flirting began to grow into something else.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"We ended up talking the entire way to his house, and it just kept going from there," James said.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The budding relationship was strained when Michael decided to move back to his native Lewiston to be with his son. But the distance was just too hard to handle, so James decided to pull up stakes, leave his hometown and move to a city he didn't even know existed until he met Michael.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">About five months ago, they started talking marriage. Idaho's constitutional ban was still in effect, though, so they decided to hold their wedding next May in Spokane. But that plan changed when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made its final ruling to strike down Idaho's ban and lift all stays.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"It was just the way that we felt," James said of the need to make a lifelong commitment. "When it comes down to it, marriage is marriage, whether it's between two men, or a woman and a man. It's based on the fact that you've decided that you want to be together forever."</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When their big day came, it unfolded like any other harried wedding day. Both men work graveyard shifts, Michael at a nursing home and James at a convenience store. Michael had just gotten off work and rushed home to get James, Dominic, Tabatha and a friend.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I was like bridezilla that morning," Michael said. "I couldn't find my slacks or anything."</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But once the party got together, it made its way downtown, where Michael looked like he was going to pass out, James said. They secured the license and were joined in marriage by Magistrate Michelle Evans. James said the staff in the auditor's office was "very nice," and Evans was "amazing."</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Now, they want to add another child to their family with Tabatha's help.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"She's going to be the mother, and we'll be the fathers, just like with Dominic," James said. "We're going to raise the kids as a family."</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Michael said he wants a girl, while James gave the more diplomatic answer that he just wants a healthy baby, whatever the gender.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">As far as being the first same-sex couple to marry in Nez Perce County, James said he didn't give it much thought until it actually happened. But now, he hopes their marriage encourages other couples to take the leap.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"It's legal here now," he said, noting that Lewiston's recent ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity makes the decision even easier. "If you want to, you can. You don't have to be ashamed of it. You don't have to hide from it. When it comes down to it, it's a simple matter of two people of the same sex wanting to get married. I really don't see a big deal in it."</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Michael doesn't either.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"If you don't like it, look the other way," he said. "You're not a part of our lives."</span></p><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">--------------------</span></p><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Michael and James Chapman of Lewiston are the first same-sex couple married in Nez Perce County following a court decision allowing same-sex marriages in the state.</span></p><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><img src="cid:832BCF55-021E-4F00-856A-60D059996D2C" alt="image1.jpeg" id="832BCF55-021E-4F00-856A-60D059996D2C"></p></div></div><div><br></div><div>--------------------------------------</div><div><br></div><div>Congratulations to Michael and James . . .</div><div><a href="http://www.TomandRodna.com/Songs/DoSiDo.mp3">http://www.TomandRodna.com/Songs/DoSiDo.mp3</a><br><br><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares"</span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div> </div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>