R.I. legislators to take up annual gay marriage debate
01:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 22, 2009
By Katherine Gregg
Providence Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE — This year’s renewed drive for same-sex marriage has once again pitted Democrat against Democrat and Republican against Republican at the State House in a seemingly intractable conflict over fundamental beliefs, while middle-grounders — such as the new state Senate president and the only Republican so far to announce his interest in running for governor — say they are open to compromise.

But with a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing scheduled for Thursday on this year’s version of a same-sex marriage bill that has been introduced every year since 1997, the question arises: Are the leaders of the state’s gay-rights community willing to compromise?

Would they accept state sanction of “civil unions” or “domestic partnerships” as a first step? Or is it an all-or-nothing proposition for them in a war that some equate to the civil-rights battles of the ’60s?

After years of trying in vain to convince his former legislative colleagues to give “gay and lesbian people in loving and committed and caring relationships the same rights and … legal protections that heterosexual couples have,” Providence’s openly gay mayor, David N. Cicilline, says he still backs “marriage equality.”

“You think about the time in this country when it was illegal for people of different races to marry … and think: How could that have been?”

But as a gay man and mayor of Rhode Island’s largest city, he said he hears enough heart-wrenching stories— about thwarted burial plans or blocked visits to intensive-care units by longtime partners — that “I think we are coming to the point where we need to have a serious conversation as a community about [whether] we try to move forward incrementally.”

But Kathy J. Kushnir, executive director of the advocacy group Marriage Equality of Rhode Island, sees no room for compromise. Told of Cicilline’s remarks last week, she said: “Our position is certainly that separate is not equal. We support full and equal marriage rights for all Rhode Islanders.”

And so, 12 years after former Rep. Michael Pisaturo, D-Cranston, introduced the state’s first same-sex marriage bill on the heels of a groundbreaking Vermont Supreme Court ruling granting gay and lesbian couples the same benefits and protections as married couples, the debate here resumes.

A recent poll commissioned by Marriage Equality detected a slight increase in support for gay marriage in Rhode Island. Of the 500 “likely” Rhode Island voters surveyed by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research in July, 49 percent supported same-sex marriage, compared with 45 percent in 2006. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed last summer identified themselves as Catholic, 23 percent as Protestant, 3 percent as Jewish.

The question posed to them: “Do you favor or oppose allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally?”

Term-limited Republican Governor Carcieri stands adamantly opposed to same-sex marriage. “Call me traditional, call me old-fashioned, I think marriage is reserved for a man and a woman to create a family,” he said as a candidate in 2002. While he was out of town last week, a spokeswoman said his views have not changed.

But every one of the top-tier Democrats weighing a run for governor next year supports same-sex marriage or says they would not stand in its way or wield a veto against it.

A former co-sponsor of same-sex marriage legislation, Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts, a former state senator, says “no law should dictate the religious traditions of marriage,” but the “civil right to marriage … is an important civil right [all] committed couples are entitled to.”

Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch says he supports same-sex marriage because he views it as “the human-rights, civil-rights issue of our day,” and also because “I was trained to fight for the equality of citizens.” Rhode Island is one of three states that recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other states as a result of an opinion Lynch issued in 2007 in response to a query from the state Board of Governors for Higher Education.

State Treasurer Frank Caprio is less enthusiastic. “Even though my personal beliefs are what I profess at church on Sunday with my Catholic background … I wouldn’t stand in front of it becoming law or going on the ballot,” he says.

But they do not control the legislature. And at this point, the General Assembly’s top leaders — House Speaker William J. Murphy, D-West Warwick, and Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport — oppose same-sex marriage.

Through a spokesman, Murphy said last week that: “A marriage in my eyes is between a man and a woman.” Paiva Weed affirmed that she too remains opposed. Why? “That is my personal position.” She will not elaborate, but says: “As a member of my community, I feel that I am in tune with them.”

But despite coming from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, both Paiva Weed, a Democrat, and Republican Rep. Joseph Trillo, who recently announced his interest in running for governor next year, say they support “civil unions” as a way of bestowing upon same-sex couples many of the legal rights they would have as a married couple.

“I think a majority of people have a problem using the word ‘marriage.’ I think the word ‘marriage’ needs to be preserved for a man and a woman because it is different,” Trillo said. “It would be like calling soccer, ‘football.’ Both kick a ball around but the game is played differently.”

Were a bill allowing same-sex marriage to make it to his desk as governor, Trillo said he would let a public poll determine whether he vetoed it. “If over 60 percent of the people supported gay marriage ... I would not veto it.” Conversely, he says he would “absolutely” sign into law Republican Sen. Leo Blais’ bill to prohibit same-sex marriage.

But Trillo said he supports “civil unions” or “life partnerships” because “I basically believe in their cause” and “I think it needs a term or a word used to describe it that would make it totally understandable for what it is.”

Echoes Paiva Weed: “At this juncture, I believe that civil unions would be a recognition of a commitment between two individuals … that if drafted properly could, in fact, entitle those individuals to many of the benefits that the law provides” heterosexual couples.

Having voted over time to extend workplace health and survivor benefits to domestic partners, she said it would also be “consistent” with her voting history.

But there is no such proposal on the legislative hearing calendar. Only three bills are up for debate Thursday night. One, sponsored by Blais, R-Coventry, would prohibit same-sex marriage. Another sponsored by Sen. Rhoda Perry, D-Providence, would pave the way for “civil marriage [as] a legal institution recognized by the state in order to promote stable relationships and to protect individuals who are in those relationships.” A third, sponsored by freshman Sen. Erin Lynch, D-Warwick, would allow same-sex couples who married elsewhere to get a divorce here.

Same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts and Connecticut, while Vermont, New Jersey and New Hampshire allow civil unions.