Like many married couples, Pamela Hathaway and Lucie Ferrari chat and plan their day over their morning coffee. Unlike most spouses, they have to do so using videoconferencing, Skype calls over the Web or a telephone because they cannot legally be together.

Hathaway, 32, is a U.S. citizen. Ferrari, 40, is a French citizen whose work visa ran out a year ago, forcing her to quit her job as a teacher in Sun Prairie and leave the country. The couple married in Canada in January, but U.S. immigration policy doesn't recognize same-sex couples, even ones that have been legally married, so Hathaway cannot sponsor Ferrari for U.S. immigration.

So Ferrari calls Hathaway at their Madison home from more than 2,000 miles away in Vanderhoof, British Columbia, where she moved a year ago to teach French.

Hathaway shows Ferrari their three cats here in Madison or carries her laptop into the backyard to show progress in their garden. Sometimes, Hathaway said, one of them will decide to start dishes or laundry while they chat and the other will do the same so they feel like they're doing it "together."

"We try and bring some normalcy to our situation," Hathaway said. "But what's become normal now is really absurd if you think about it." Read story, "Immigration law separates same-sex couple" by Melanie Conklin, Wisconsin State Journal.

(Photo: Personal; Lucie Ferrari, left, and her partner Pamela Hathaway, who have been separated by U.S. immigration policy that does not allow U.S. citizens to sponsor their same-sex partners. The couple were married in Canada in January.)

Tags: USA, France, Canada