habtm join requires an active connection

I'm seeing this too - association declaration below. Is there a recommended workaround?

        has_and_belongs_to_many :related_tags, :class_name => 'SemanticallyTaggable::Tag',
                                :association_foreign_key => 'related_tag_id', :join_table => 'related_tags',
                                :insert_sql => 'INSERT INTO related_tags (`tag_id`, `related_tag_id`) VALUES (#{id}, #{record.id}), (#{record.id}, #{id})',
                                :delete_sql => 'DELETE FROM related_tags WHERE (tag_id = #{id} AND related_tag_id = #{record.id}) OR (tag_id = #{record.id} AND related_tag_id = #{id})'

Here's my (not very good) workaround:

after "require "rails/all" in application.rb

  database_yml = File.expand_path('../database.yml', __FILE__)
  if File.exists?(database_yml)
    active_record_configuration = YAML.load_file(database_yml)[Rails.env]
    ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(active_record_configuration)
  else
    raise "Please create #{database_yml} first to configure your database."
  end

However, the habtm in question is being defined in a gem, which makes it harder than it needs to be for people to add a reference to the gem. Still open to much better suggestions than mine :)

Ok, a quick autoload on the offending class also works very well in a Railtie and obviates the need for the above hackery :)

Don't know why I mentioned a Railtie there. One is not required...